YILLAGEliORK 
ININDIK 



13 



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im 



NORMAN RUSSELL 



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Class __^J_4:_ 



Book ^ ^S 
Copyright ]J^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



VILLAGE WORK IN INDIA 



Village Work in India 



PEN PICTURES FROM A 
MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCE 



By 
NORMAN RUSSELL 

Of the Canada Presbyterian Churchy Central India 




1 ' i > , » 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 

1902 



THE LIBRARY AFl 

. ©INGRESS, I 
Two Cow £8 Rec£?ve» 

MAY. 2 1902 

COPVRWMT CNTRV 

CLASS CaXXa No. 



Copyright, 1902 by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



< c t t t t 



THE CAXTOX PRESS 
NEW YORK. 



.-^ojv^ 



PRONUNCIATION 

While the common Hindi words, the geo- 
graphical and most of the historical names have 
been left unmarked and given their English spell- 
ing, most of the vernacular terms have been 
italicised and are to be pronounced according to 
the following rules: 

a has the sound of a in wom^n. 
^ has the sound of a in father, 
e has the vowel sound in grey. 
i has the sound of i in p/'n. 
1 has the sound of i in intr/gue. 
o has the sound of o in bone, 
u has the sound of u in huW. 
u has the sound of u in rwral. 
ai has the vowel sound in briar. 



Contents 



PAGE 



I 

The Vision on Mount Tumbai ... 9 

II 
In the Valley 20 

III 

A Village Audience 32 

IV 

Rejected . . . . . . -47 

V 
Under the Mango Trees . . . .65 

VI 

Night Work in the Bazaar . . . .83 

VII 
Against Great Odds 100 

VIII 
Barwai: An Outstation . . . .114 



6 Contents 

IX 
How We Dug the Well . . . .133 

X 

Taking a City 149 

XI 
Planting a Mission Among the Bhils . .164 

XII 
In a Tiger's Den 187 

XIII 
The School of the Prophets . . .199 

XIV 
When Skies are Brass 218 

XV 
The Problem 239 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

A Temple of Shiv ----- Title ^ 

A Place of Pilgrimage - - - - 48 ^ 

Temple Built for the Eternal Peace of 

A QyEEN's Soul - - - _ 48 

Woman Grinding Spice - - - - 84 

Potter at Work - - - - - 84^ 

Our Audience in the Market Place - 105 

The Village Schoolmaster - - - 105 

On the Roof of Unkarji's Temple - - 167 v- 

Bhil Soldiers and a Raw Recruit - - 167 ^ 

A Hindu Holy Man - - _ - 206 

Guru and Disciples _ _ - _ 206 

One of India's Poor - - - - 219 

Every Blade of Grass Gathered from 

Hillside and Hedgerow - - 219 "^ 

Famine Boys and the Carpets They Have 

Woven ------ 237 



Village Work in India 



THE VISION ON MOUNT TUMBAI 

It was morning. Standing on one of the 
loftiest spurs of the Vindhyas, we were looking 
down on the valley of the Nerbudda 2,000 feet 
below. The sun had just cleared the low-lying 
mists, and, sweeping up the long vista, unfolded 
a lovely panorama of miniature lake, dense wood- 
land and green and golden grain fields. Behind 
us, like a rampart, stretched out on either hand 
the great hillsides; while far away in the melt- 
ing distance rose, in dull grey, the parallel range 
of the Satpuras, these two guarding, like lofty 
walls, the garden valley of Nimar. 

As the mist rolled away, there peeped up out 

of the darkness at our feet a group of humble 

villages, mere broken patches of dull-faded 

thatch, red tiled roof and yellow straw pile. 

Farther on, the vapour seemed to melt into a 

lovely stretch of mango trees, from among whose 

9 



lo Village Work in India 

leaves the more pretentious whitewashed walls 
of Bagode and Parlia glittered in the morning 
sunlight. Beyond these, field and village fol- 
lowed in quick succession, and so close together 
that we could barely distinguish where the trees 
of one parted from those of another. As the air 
cleared we could see still farther, the melting 
mist unveiling not single villages but groups, 
some clustered together in the river bottoms, 
others banked on the hillsides, but still more 
fading into indefmiteness against the greys and 
greens of the richly clad soil, and only distin- 
guished by some conspicuous temple-dome, tank 
or other landmark, well known to our guides. It 
was as though we were standing on the shore of 
some great sea of human activity, a throbbing 
flood of life and labour; East and West, far as the 
eye could reach, and wide as to where in the ill- 
defmed distance the temple tops of Maheshwar 
and Mandalesar overshadowed the sacred waters 
of the Nerbudda, it stretched in one ever broad- 
ening and denser succession; and even beyond 
our line of definite vision, we knew that for 
forty miles South, far as the purplish grey of our 
broken sky-line, another and quite as densely 
populated plain stretched up from the farther 
river bank. 



The Vision on Mount Tumbai u 

The wheat was just ripening, and its yellow 
patches stood out in sharp contrast to the bril- 
liancy of the flowering poppy fields, the bright 
green of the sugar-cane, and the darker hued 
gram 2ind jowdr. Here and there cultivation was 
interrupted by stretches of rugged jungle or deep 
ravines, but oftener by clumps of noble trees- 
mango and pipal, banyan and /m//— each clump 
marking a village. Right up into the rocks of 
the foothills flowed this sea of cultivation, the 
necessity of man extracting, by means of irriga- 
tion, what unaided Nature refused to yield. 

We looked down upon one of the earliest and 
loveliest haunts of man, the scene of many a 
struggle, many a battle between Hindu and 
Mohammedan powers, many a Maratha raid, 
many a contest between rival religions, but 
which never, within the recollection of his- 
tory, had gazed into the face of famine or 
known the horrors of drouth. It was one of 
the gardens of India, far famed as the land 
of plenty, the refuge of the famine stricken and 
needy, and with no curse but that which ema- 
nated from the sin and folly of man. After the 
first rushing glamour of its beauty, the thought 
that gradually crowded out all others was that 
beneath each of these innumerable roof-tops and 



12 Village Work in India 

countless grey thatches, human souls were work- 
ing out the problem of life. There must have 
been upwards of a million of people in this 
valley/ and their villages were grouped together 
more closely than farmhouses in our well settled 
districts at home. Perhaps the acutest and most 
persistent sensation of the missionary in the East, 
is this fever of millions. From the very first day, 
out of the maze of novel sights and sounds — the 
blinding sunlight, the oppressive heat, the babel 
of strange voices, the panorama of many hued 
faces and costumes, the gesticulating throngs of 
coolies and hack drivers, the strange vehicles, 
the little box-like shops with all sorts of unknown 
articles for sale, the many wonderful buildings, 
but chiefly the carved stone temples with for- 
bidding and hideous figures peering out from 
their dark recesses — one impression leaps into 

1 The last census of Central India had given a population of 
10,318,812, of whom 9,354,274 were returned as rural. 
These latter occupy 32,415 villages, giving an average of 288 
to each village, 5.2 to each house, and is spread over an area 
of 78,219 square miles. In the Province of Bengal according 
to the census of 1891, there were 227,000 towns and villages 
to an area of 151,000 square miles or nearly two villages to the 
square mile. In N. W. P. and Oudh the average was about 
one to the square mile. With sixty houses to the village in 
Bengal, and seventy-five in the N. W. P., this gives a density 
in the former province of over 470, and in the latter of some 
436 persons to the square mile. 



The Vision on Mount Tumbai 13 

the foreground; it is the overpowering feeling of 
the almost prodigality of human life, stirred by 
the presence of India's millions. 

Well do I remember my first journey into the 
great city of Bombay. The narrow streets of 
the bazaar teemed with human life from shop 
front to shop front, and it was only with diffi- 
culty our carriage could thread its way; it was as 
though we were navigating some human Sara- 
gasso, the crowd opened to allow us to pass only 
to close in again, obliterating our track behind. 
The quickly changing expressions on their un- 
familiar faces, and the sharp, chattering sound of 
their unknown tongues exercised an almost 
hypnotic effect, and we felt dazed and helpless. 
In travelling up country this feeling did not leave 
us. At each station crowds thronged into the 
third class carriages, till we naturally asked if 
there were a special excursion. But it is always 
excursion on Indian railways. Later we fre- 
quently saw them, when on special occasions 
they were gathering to some religious festival, 
packed closely in long rows on the open plat- 
form, waiting patiently hour after hour, beneath 
a burning sun or during some cold midnight, for 
a special to be sent for their accommodation. 
When passing through the cultivated districts, 



14 Village Work in India 

far as the eye could reach on either side of the 
track, clumps of trees, blending often one with 
another, announced centres of human life. And 
when, leaving the railway, we went out among 
the villages, the impression was only deepened; 
village followed on village, market-place on 
market-place, and all of them, especially on 
bazaar days, thronged with eager busy crowds; 
at festival times the shrines and places of pil- 
grimage were so crowded we could barely find 
standing room, and the roads became practically 
impassable. 

At first it was just their numbers, their poverty 
and seeming wretchedness that stirred our sym- 
pathies. But after we had learned the language 
and come into direct contact with the people, 
when we had entered into their condition and 
become acquainted with their joys and sorrows, 
we perceived that they are more than mere atoms 
of humanity; that they have their longings after 
something higher and better like ourselves ; that 
however darkened by superstition and idolatry, 
they have a capacity for God, and that many of 
them are reaching out after Him. We perceived 
in them, moreover, a people of great possibili- 
ties, with characteristics which not only call forth 
our admiration, but which we feel might profit- 



The Vision on Mount Tumbai 15 

ably teach their lessons to the more material 
West. But, alas, temptations throng them; their 
whole environment drags them downwards; 
their so-called religious teachers are but grubbing 
with the muckrake like themselves; there is no 
prophet among them and no vision from God; 
their moral ideals are low; right and wrong are 
measured, not by eternal principles, but by con- 
formity to rituals and conventionalities; woman 
has been degraded; the poor have been out- 
casted; and intellectual and spiritual develop- 
ment cut off. 

These thoughts were in our minds, as we 
watched the unfolding panorama of the valley 
beneath. Suddenly my companion called atten- 
tion to our native guides, who, as if to give voice 
to our thoughts, had grouped themselves round 
a painted stone, set up by some wandering shep- 
herd as a vain protection against man and beast. 
Muttering their superstitious nothings before this 
woodland fetich, they seemed fairly to represent 
the great proportion of India's people in their 
conception of God and His relation to man — 
God, if in their thoughts at all, too far off, too 
impersonal and indefinite to be Himself realised, 
insensible to the needs of His creatures, and only 
manifested in a legion of lesser deities of whom 



i6 Village Work in India 

man is either the vassal or the prey. What they 
once knew of God seems to have been forgotten 
and they grope after Him in vain. There is no 
hope, no help for them from within, and if 
salvation is to come to them it must be from 
without. 

It was this very helplessness of the valley that 
touched us; the dumb appeal of its Christless 
multitudes broke upon us like a great cry, a cry 
for God — God as revealed in the loving heart of 
Christ. And yet what part had Christ in the life 
of that valley ? In all its crowded villages there 
could not be detected a single church spire or 
Christian schoolhouse; from not a single roof- 
top were praises ascending to His Name. Ex- 
cept for a few hurried visits and some scattered 
tracts, no gospel influence had penetrated the 
valley. Away to the East Unkdrji, the phallic 
emblem of Mdhddev (Shiv), enthroned in his 
fortress amidst the Nerbudda waters, still held 
religious sway over its people; and down by the 
river in front of us the same god still held court 
for his countless devotees neath the temple 
domes of Maheshwar. 

It seemed as though in that hour Christ stood 
beside us, and, like a burning lava stream, His 
questions poured upon our conscience-stricken 



The Vision on Mount Tumbai 17 

hearts. Had the poor of Nimar no claim on His 
gospel? Had He not come to release their cap- 
tives or give sight to their blind ? Was not His 
liberty to be proclaimed to their bruised? Or 
did we think the struggle was hopeless, that the 
bones were so dry they could not live ? Had 
custom and caste and hoary superstition grown 
so strong and reared such mighty bulwarks that 
they could not be broken ? 

Then there passed before us a vision. We 
saw that little company going forth in poverty 
and ignorance from the upper room in Jerusa- 
lem, with nothing to acclaim them but the scoffs 
and jeers of the multitude, and with no honours 
but the prison house and the cross. We saw 
them as, bearing their Evangel, they went out 
over lands and seas, ever meeting the same 
opposition, ever harried by the crowd, ever 
scourged by those in authority, and yet ever con- 
quering by the power of their message and the 
spirit that dwelt within them, entering the palace 
of the mighty and the hovel of the poor, turning 
strong men into children and little ones into 
mighty warriors. We saw the conquering 
sweep of the Gospel down through the ages, 
as it sapped the foundations of empires and 
overthrew the thrones of kings, as it dragged 



i8 Village Work in India 

new nations into light and made them to be 
mightier than the men of old, strong in word 
and deed. We saw it winning its way through 
Europe, setting up on the ruins of man's greatest 
effort an Empire that owned for Lord the de- 
spised Nazarene. We saw it transplanted to the 
newer world of the West, gathering more lav- 
ishly the more liberally it strawed. We saw it 
again, as awakening anew to the great commis- 
sion of its Founder, it sent forth its emissaries to 
the uttermost parts of the earth to win its Lord's 
inheritance and gather out from the nations a peo- 
ple for His Name. We could even trace in lines 
of fire its conquering pathway across the plains 
of India, turning ignorant villagers into men of 
wisdom and influence, and superstitious idolaters 
into children of light. 

Then the vision turned to the valley be- 
neath. It also was a part of the Lord Christ's 
inheritance, and upon its people He had set His 
seal, and well did we know that His soul would 
never be satisfied till He had gathered them, 
with all their wealth of patience and industry, 
into His kingdom. We saw the shrines of Un- 
hdrji deserted and the temples of Maheshwar 
crumbling away, creepers wound their destruc- 
tive way over the places of the gods, moles 



The Vision on Mount Tumbai 19 

burrowed between their loosening stones, while, 
in the niches above, bats found their hiding- 
place; and in their stead temples to the Living 
God crowned each hillside, schoolhouses over- 
shadowed the market-places, and hospitals and 
infirmaries peeped out from between the mango 
groves, while from a thousand thousand lips 
were hymned praises to the True Avatar, the 
Christ of God; peace reigned in the valley, for 
the hearts of the people were filled with the love 
of God and truth. 

And there in the Christ presence, with the 
halo of the vision still around us, we renewed 
our determination to throw ourselves into the 
stream of God's purpose for this people; and 
taking one last, lingering look at the scene be- 
neath, now fading into indistinctness behind the 
haze of deepening sunlight, we scrambled down 
the steep hillside, under overhanging rocks and 
through patches of jungle teak and temru, to the 
service awaiting us in the villages of the Kcwi- 
asdar. 



II 

IN THE VALLEY 

"Are/ kyd hud?'' (Hulloa! what's the 
matter ? ) 

Well might we ask, for as our tonga (horse- 
cart) swung round the curve leading down to 
the river, a most disconsolate looking crowd 
burst on our view, three native preachers, the 
cook and bullock-drivers. Travel-stained and 
mud-besmattered, for it had been raining the 
night before, they stood beside the idle carts, 
gazing at what had once been an insignificant 
stream, but for some reason, which we after- 
wards discovered to be a burst dam, was now 
swollen to a river torrent. 

** We can't get across, Padri Sahib," answered 
Bhagaji, **the water's too deep and the sdmdn 
(goods) will get wet." 

We had already suffered that morning at a 
ford some six or eight miles back, from the rain- 
fall of the previous day, and would probably 
have been there still, stuck in the mud, had it 

not been for a passing tribe of Banjdrrds, who, 

20 



In the Valley 21 

with all their proclivities for cattle lifting, were 
not averse to helping the padri sahibs. When 
we had sent the men on with the carts, we our- 
selves remaining to preach in a village, it was 
without suspicion of further trouble, for this was 
not the rainy season; and yet here we were in 
a worse fix than ever. There was absolutely no 
choice of roads, for only in one place had years 
of traffic sufficiently worn away the banks to 
admit of reaching the river bed. 

"Well," I said, after ascertaining the full 
extent of our dilemma, "we will try it with 
the tonga first," and suiting action to the words, 
urged the horses into the stream. The water 
was muddy and no trace of the original track 
remained; forty feet away we could see where 
again the road climbed from the river up the 
almost perpendicular bank; but what lay be- 
tween or what effect the torrent had made on 
the river bed, it was impossible to tell. Gradu- 
ually as we crossed, the water rose from axle to 
tonga box, until, as we neared the other side, 
where, having most play, the stream had swept 
part of the bank away, it almost reached the seat. 
The horses were spurred up the steep incline 
with whip and voice; they were strong and 
eager to obey, struggling at trace and yoke; but 



12 Village Work in India 

suddenly the country-made harness gave way, 
the frightened horses, slipping from under the 
yoke dashed madly up the bank, and the tonga 
fell back into the river bed, tumbling the native 
groom off the back seat and carrying us right 
into the middle of the swirling, muddy current. 

It is not very often the jungle roads are as bad 
as this; but many a time have we sat down to 
breakfast at four or five in the afternoon, when, 
on our forced marches from one centre to an- 
other, the carts have been delayed or broken 
down on the way. Sometimes stones axle high 
block the road; at other times the ruts are so 
deep that the carts and contents are thrown in 
the ditch; again two carts meet in a narrow 
defile, where there is barely room for one, and 
the stupid, frightened oxen refuse or are unable 
to back out; or it may be the cart is stuck in the 
mud, and the bullocks will not budge till the load 
is taken off. Once we had our cart wheels 
broken to pieces, descending a rocky hillside, 
and were delayed a day till new ones could be 
procured from the nearest town. But these ex- 
periences only add to the excitement of camp 
life among the villages; there is seldom an acci- 
dent, and then only a few bruises, a sprain, or a 
dislocated shoulder. 



In the Valley 23 

There was no little amusement, among the 
crowd on the bank, at the padri sahib's dilemma, 
as we scrambled out of our wet perch, along 
the narrow, slippery tonga pole and into the 
shallow water at the bank. And doubtless we 
were a more disconsolate looking crowd than 
those we had left on the other side; our horses 
scampering wildly over the fields, our tonga in 
the river, ourselves wet and muddy, and all our 
goods on the other side of a madly rushing 
stream. But the laughing villagers lent willing 
hands, the gdri (cart) was dragged out, the 
horses were caught, the harness mended, the 
bullock carts were unloaded, and the sdmdn 
carried over at a shallower part of the stream ; 
and after giving a bakshish (reward) to our 
helpers we were soon on the way. 

On reaching camp, we found that the usual 
parao or halting place was untenable. The 
young mangoes were in sap, and the red ants, 
having formed busy highways from tree to tree, 
had preempted the grove. No one disputes a 
roadway more persistently or backs up his claim 
more effectually than the red ant; you can put 
up with the white ant, for he is satisfied with 
your tent flaps and shoe leather, but the red ant 
wants you. Of the neighbouring groves, one 



24 Village Work in India 

was occupied, another dirty, and a third had no 
good shade; so that it was late before we finally 
found a suitable place beneath a group of old 
forest giants in the corner of a wheat-field, where, 
on a carpet of dried leaves, we erected our tents. 
We had the usual delay in procuring fire-wood 
and grass for the bulls. Though in the midst of 
trees, we dared not cut one; for every tree is 
valuable property in India, carefully detailed in 
the plan of the ground, and not to be destroyed 
without official permission; and, spite of being 
in a land of farmers, none would sell us grass, 
all supplies having to be procured, and some- 
times only after long delay and much bickering, 
from the headman of the nearest village. If so 
desired, the Political Officer will provide us 
with an order on all headmen and thdnaddrs 
(police officers) to furnish us with what we need 
at market rates; but we prefer, if possible, not 
to identify ourselves with the secular power, or 
lend any colouring to the idea that Christianity 
is propagated by compulsion; as it is we are not 
infrequently suspected of being in Government 
pay. Along with the grass and wood came the 
village chowkiddrs or guards, whom the Native 
States prefer we should employ against any 
would-be marauder. It was not in the security 



In the Valley 25 

of these however, but in the thought that we 
were the ambassadors of God, under His pro- 
tection and on His mission, that, after a hastily 
prepared but hearty meal, and our evening 
prayer, we lay down to a dreamless sleep. 

" Ab tak tu kyon sot& hai ? 

Suraj nikld, hud saweray 
(Why doth slumber bind thine eyes, 

And sleep thy senses steal ? 
When reddening beams, thwart eastern skies, 

The rising sun reveal ?) 

It was the preachers at their morning hymn; 
but the music falls on already half-i wakened 
senses, sleep is hastily dashed from the eyes, 
bedclothes are tossed aside, we step out into the 
cold, bracing air of a January morning, and an- 
other day's work is begun. In one respect the 
words of the Hindi lyric are not correct, for the 
sun is not yet risen when we throw aside the 
tent curtains and go out to our morning cup of 
tea. Around us however all is activity — the 
cloth has just been laid under a noble mango- 
tree, and, while the toast is preparing, the kettle 
sends out a cheery sound from above the camp- 
fire; back of the tent the horses are being 
groomed, and the bullock drivers are giving their 
animals a hasty meal, preparatory to leaving for 



26 Village Work in India 

their homes; in the neighbouring tent the native 
preachers are at their devotions or preparing 
their bundles of tracts for the day's work. 

The night had been cold and the tea, though 
not a very substantial preparation for half a day's 
work, was very welcome. Then followed a 
short service, mostly petition; and though the 
morning reveille to the waking village gods filled 
the air, and from the whitewashed mouth of the 
neighbouring temple glared the hideous linea- 
ments of a heathen idol, while gaping unbelief 
looked incredulously on, never within holy clois- 
ter or cathedral walls did God seem nearer than 
at that altar beneath the mango-trees. 

Dividing into two parties, each led by a mis- 
sionary, we set out on a tour of the neighbouring 
villages. Down the main road between the cac- 
tus hedges, past early moving bullock carts, with 
drivers fast asleep on their loads, over the river 
by a bridge of stepping stones, up through the 
midst of the village cattle as they gathered for 
their journey junglewards, along the dusty trail 
of a herd of buffaloes, past the little hut where 
the potter was already fixing his first lump of wet 
clay to the wheel, we turned into the main street 
of the village, an uneven, winding roadway of 
various widths, lined with representatives of the 



In the Valley 27 

peasant crafts and trades. I need hardly tell you 
that the shop on the left belongs to the village 
blacksmith, for even though you might not 
recognise the fireplace sunk in the mud floor, 
nor the hand bellows made of two goatskins 
and worked by opening and shutting the hands, 
you could not mistake the man shoeing the over- 
turned bullock, or the grimy clothes of the assist- 
ant sitting on the poor animal's head, or the ring 
of manure-cake ashes, which tells that the day 
before he had been setting a tire. That row of 
grain baskets on the low mud verandah, flanked 
by a bag of salt and kerosene oil tins filled with 
ght (butter), is the bunya's shop; you can see 
his fat, oily face bending over the leather-bound 
account book, figuring on who is next to be 
fleeced. The little box-like shop beyond, strewn 
with tin lamps, wooden combs, mirrors, brass 
trinkets and powders, belongs to the Borah, 
whose chief commodity is kerosene, the Orient's 
ubiquitous illuminant, and whose empty tins 
form one of the Orient's most useful friends, be- 
ing made into everything from drinking cups to 
shop doors. In the big, two-storied place over the 
way, whose floors are spread with cushions, sits 
Mahdjan (money-lender) buttoning on his coat 
after his morning ablutions at the neighbouring 



28 Village Work in India 

well; and the ash-clad man in front, with loin- 
cloth, necklace and begging bowl, is a wander- 
ing sddhU (ascetic), thankful even for the bad 
coins, by which the money-lender hopes to add 
to his chances for salvation. In the little shop 
next door, the goldsmith is getting ready his 
charcoal fire and blowpipe, for the patel (head- 
man) of a neighbouring village has ordered an 
earring for his wife. 

As we pass along we give each a greeting, in- 
viting them to our meeting in the open square 
near the hachahri. This is the office of the 
Amin, on whom, as head of the district, we 
wish to call and pay our respects. We stop, 
on the way, at the village school, held on the 
teacher's verandah, to tell the schoolmaster about 
our evening meeting; and he makes us promise 
to come in the afternoon and see the boys. The 
gongs and drums have ceased ere we reach the 
temple, and presumably the god is now awake, 
for the priest is giving him his morning bath and 
offering of flowers, the more substantial gifts 
being devoted to the priest's own use. Like the 
majority of the temples in Nimar valley, it is 
dedicated to Mdhddev {Shiv), and contains a 
phallic emblem and an image of Anandi the Bull. 

By this time the whole village is life and 



In the Valley 29 

bustle. The herdsman is gathering the remain- 
ing cattle from their shelters on the verandahs or 
within the houses of their owners; the house- 
wives with little palm-leaf brooms are sweeping 
out their homes, only to allow the filth, however, 
to gather at their less tidy neighbour's doorstep, 
or in the middle of the roadway; for sanitation 
of any kind, is a word the villager cannot spell; 
some of the younger women are away with 
their brass water-pots to the well, or for their 
morning bath to the village tank; others are still 
grinding at the mills, or making manure-cakes 
for next day's fuel. Of the men, some few 
are off to their work in the fields, but most, now 
the busy season is nearly over, sit warming 
themselves in the sun, thawing out the midnight 
cold, and midst spasmodic gossip, passing the 
chilam (pipe) solemnly from mouth to mouth. 
The village barber is on his rounds with razor 
and water-pot, attending to his patrons wherever 
found. A little group is gathered round the vil- 
lage sage and astrologer, an aged Brahmin bub- 
bling over with Hindu lore. Except for the few 
better class boys, who are at school, most of the 
children are in evidence, some few basking in 
the sun between their fathers' knees, others 
munching scraps of cold chapdti (unleavened 



30 Village Work in India 

cake), and many, especially the girls, running in 
the tracks of the cattle to gather material for the 
family fuel. 

Could we get behind the walls and see within 
these homes, a plain interior would meet our 
eyes. Some houses of the shopkeepers and 
officials are double-storied and whitewashed, but 
in most villages these are not to be found. The 
well-to-do farmer has his courtyard, with per- 
haps a terraced tree in the centre, a shed for his 
cattle and implements, and the rest divided off 
into living and store rooms. In this valley, where 
so many peoples have met, there is little conform- 
ity, but most of the homes are simple, with but 
one, it may be two rooms and a verandah. The 
house is usually clean; a rude stone mill occupies 
one corner, the mud fireplace another, and a few 
brass vessels stand against the wall; a box for 
extra clothing and the rolls of bedding, consist- 
ing of grass mat and quilted cotton rugs, com- 
plete the furnishings. In some houses there is a 
basket or clay receptacle for grain, or a small 
pyramid of earthen pots; and some few give a 
niche to their favourite god or hang his picture 
on the wall. 

It had been our intention to call on the Amin, 
who in this village took precedence of the ordi- 



In the Valley jl 

nary patel, and hold our meeting on the village 
square in front of the sarai or travellers' rest 
house; but on turning round a corner, past the 
drink shop, with its black bottles and broken 
glasses set out on a brilliantly covered stool, in 
front of the liquor keg, we found the usually 
quiet verandah and low-roofed shop of the vil- 
lage carpenter crowded with men, seated in 
groups on floor, wood-pile or half-finished cart 
wheels, smoking and gossiping. We stopped 
to enquire and thus found our first audience. 



Ill 

A VILLAGE AUDIENCE 

There had been a death in the carpenter's 
house and the caste people for miles around, to 
the number of about two hundred, had gathered 
for two or three days feasting. 

What a strange anomaly and tyrannical auto- 
crat is custom in India, lording it over conscience, 
intellect and even the fear of state decree. A few 
days before in a neighbouring village, a woman 
lay dying. ''Why don't you get some medicine 
for her ? " a Christian asked. " IVdh, Bdbd," re- 
plied the husband, ''what can I do ? I have no 
money." And for want of a few pice worth of 
medicine, he made no effort to save her. Up- 
wards of two hundred people gathered to the 
funeral feast, which cost him some Rs. 750 
($250), and for which, probably, he was obliged 
to mortgage not only all he was worth, but his 
productiveness for years to come, becoming in 
fact the virtual slave of the money-lender. And 
yet he dared not refuse; bound by a conserva- 
tism that counts it almost sacriligeous to change 

32 



A Village Audience 33 

the tools of his father's trade, the poor Hindu is 
the creature of custom. To all our counsels 
against extravagance at wedding and funeral 
feasts, there is one reply: '' dastilr hai,*' (it is 
custom). From such a decision there is prac- 
tically no appeal; whether it be good or bad, 
whether to advantage or disadvantage, the fact 
that it is the recognised custom is the final 
arbitrament. 

The story is told of a village washerman, who, 
instead of dividing his bundle of clothes and lay- 
ing it across his bullock's back, put all the clothes 
on one side, and balanced them by hanging a 
millstone on the other. When remonstrated 
with he replied, to the satisfaction of all, it is 
said, " It is the custom in our family, thus did 
my forefathers and so do I." With the Hindu 
what is, is right, the present cannot be superior 
to the past; the age of wisdom and plenty is in 
the memory of his forefathers, when the seas 
flowed with milk and sugar-cane juice, and the 
rishis (sages) talked with the gods. And so in 
every detail of life, whether it be in the more public 
ceremonies connected with marriage and death, 
or in the conducting of the ordinary, daily house- 
hold affairs, the despot of custom holds uncon- 
tested sway. For the individual to fight it is to 



34 Village Work in India 

contend with the sea; it is hoary with age, in- 
vincible in strength, bred into the very bone and 
sinew of Hindu society, and paralyses every in- 
stinct to change and progress. 

The company gathered on the carpenter's ve- 
randah were all of one caste. No matter how 
closely his neighbours may have been associated 
with him from childhood, nor what charitable 
service may have bound them to him, he would 
no more think of inviting them to a feast than 
the aborigines roaming in the jungle; the guests 
were present by authority of their caste connec- 
tion. If the Hindu's hands are tied by custom, 
his feet are bound by its fellow despot caste. 
Separated into an innumerable number of com- 
munities, which even in this little village would 
number more than a score, they cannot eat to- 
gether, drink of the same vessel, intermarry or 
have any social relationship. 

Caste exercises a social tyranny, its rigorous 
laws entering into every detail of life, "ordain- 
ing," says Dr. Wilson, ''methods of sucking, 
sipping, drinking and eating; of washing, 
anointing; of clothing and ornamenting the 
body; of sitting, rising, reclining, moving, 
travelling, speaking, reading, etc. ... It 
has laws for social and religious rights, privileges 



A Village Audience 35 

and occupations; . . . for errors, sins, trans- 
gressions. ... It unfolds the way of com- 
mitting what it calls sins, accumulating sin, and 
of putting away sin. ... It interferes, in 
short, with all the relations and events of life, 
and with what precedes and follows, or what is 
supposed to precede and follow life. . . ." 

Caste has its apologists, even without the pale 
of Hinduism; nor has it been without certain 
advantages, watching over the interests of those 
in its own guild, securing them from outside 
competition, and assuring by generations of 
heredity a certain excellence in labour; it has 
also been advocated on the ground of the sani- 
tariness of its regulations and the respect 
it creates for those in authority. But though 
caste may have served a temporary purpose, 
perhaps a wise purpose, it has long ago passed 
beyond the stage of being an element in the de- 
velopment of the race, and become senile, cor- 
rupt and bigoted. It is the tool of the priests 
and religious leaders, the ready instrument of 
family quarrels and jealousies and the strongest 
opponent of Christianity. I have known a poor 
farmer, into whose well some passing stranger 
had dipped his drinking cup, compelled, because 
some jealous neighbour had reported him, not 



36 Village Work in India 

only to have it emptied and purified by the Brah- 
mins, but also to soothe the offended feelings of 
his caste by providing a ruinous feast. On an- 
other occasion, in one of our villages, a panchdyat 
(caste committee) met at the dictation of some 
religious fanatic, for some three days, to appor- 
tion punishment to a man whose ox had acci- 
dentally strangled itself in the stall. It is a com- 
mon sight at railw^ay stations or on the roadside, 
to see a man carefully polishing the outside of 
his lota (drinking cup) before drinking, without 
giving a thought to the cleanliness of the inside 
or the purity of the water. The treatment of 
Christian converts by such a system can well be 
imagined; they are refused, at least in the Native 
States, the use of the wells, are outcasted by 
their relatives, generally deprived of their means 
of livelihood, and subjected to innumerable petty 
persecutions. 

Caste has its physical evils in early marriages 
and inbreeding; it hinders social and commercial 
intercourse; it is opposed to progress and general 
education, to individual liberty and national pa- 
triotism ; it paralyses any outflow of generosity 
to those without its own community, fostering 
almost unparalleled selfishness. But its gravest 
fault is in the wrong perspective it gives of the 



A Village Audience 37 

obligations and sanctities of life. While magni- 
fying abnormally the petty peccadilloes against 
caste observances, it is practically blind to acts of 
sometimes gross immorality, of incontinence, 
untruth and injustice, especially against the 
members of other castes. Where such evils 
have been practiced with impunity, so far as 
they affect a man's caste relations, the taking of 
a glass of water from an European would have 
been visited with severe punishment. Practically 
the laws of caste, oftentimes undefined and rep- 
resenting merely the prejudices of a temporary 
panchdyat, have been set up in the place of con- 
science, and made to define the morality of 
India, a petty, selfish prejudice usurping the 
place of the Spirit of God. As Sir Henry Maine 
has well said, "Caste is the most disastrous and 
blighting of all human institutions." 

Could we have entered into the lives of these 
village carpenters, gathered from many quarters, 
we would have found in them a remarkable 
sameness. Centuries of slavery to caste and 
custom have produced in the villagers of India a 
dull, colourless monotony of life and purpose, 
with no sparkle of individuality. Slow and 
easy-going, they take no account of time, chroni- 
cling events by some flood, famine or great ca- 



38 Village Work in India 

tastrophe. Farmer or carpenter by caste, the 
thought of being anything else never enters their 
mind. They take life as it comes, joy or sorrow, 
plenty or poverty, with an indifference that is 
almost philosophical. "Jo hogd so hogd " (what 
will be will be) is their fatalistic explanation of 
every providence, leaving no room for ambition, 
perseverance in right or opposition to wrong. 
And yet if the Hindu has any ideal it is that he 
should be thought religious. He is a bigoted 
idolater, reverencing the very mud platform 
surrounding the ugly, red-painted, often shape- 
less stone, that stands for the village god; no one 
could be more punctilious in the observance of 
religious rites or more faithful in attendance on 
religious festivals; and his increasing desire, as 
he grows older, is to make a pilgrimage to one 
of the great religious shrines. 

These paradoxes of his character find their ex- 
planation in a subtle pantheism, underlying all 
his religious thinking, which seems woven into 
the very warp and woof of his being, colouring 
not only every thought but every action. It ob- 
literates the lines between moral good and evil, 
completely dulling the conscience. To him sin 
is not an offense against God, but the infringe- 
ment of the conventionalities of caste; and sal- 



A Village Audience 39 

vation is not a complete fellowship with 
God through the elimination of evil, but an 
absorption into Brahma through the oblitera- 
tion of all the attributes of self-consciousness, 
moral and intellectual, whether good or 
evil. 

Most varied have been the descriptions of Hindu 
character, from " the bravest of Asiatics, remark- 
able for simplicity and integrity," to those, among 
whom ''there is no degree of cruelty, no excess 
of vice, no hardened profligacy, no ineffable 
abomination, of which we cannot find examples." 
Not only is there injustice, however, in the appli- 
cation of western standards to the East, but no 
general description of character would be true of 
the whole three hundred millions of India's 
people. There is much in them to be admired 
as well as much to be deplored. While indus- 
trious, patient, respectful to parents, charitable 
and, on the whole, free from the gross material- 
ism of the West, their moral ideals are low; and 
the lack of truthfulness, honesty, mutual con- 
fidence and gratitude is so marked as to be ac- 
counted characteristic of the people. The degra- 
dation of woman, with all its immoral fruits, 
neglect of the poor, and tyranny on the part of 
those in power, are the natural outcome of a re- 



40 Village Work in India 

ligion which sanctions gross impurities in its 
gods and the evils of caste. 

But whether we view the Hindu from the 
standpoint of their needs or their potentialities, 
our responsibility is the same for giving them 
the only power which will supply the one or 
develop the other. Their characteristic faults 
are deep rooted, resting in their wrong concep- 
tions of God and sin. So far from their religion 
being a spiritual dynamic to lift them upwards, 
it is mainly responsible for dragging them down. 
Ever substituting conformity to code for loyalty 
to principle, and the authority of the priesthood 
for that of conscience, Hinduism, except for oc- 
casional spasmodic efforts, has been a constant 
retrogression from the monotheism of the earliest 
Vedas to the gross polytheism of the Puranas. 

The needs of the Hindu, however, are not 
summed up in new ideals, new views of God, 
sin, and man's relationship to God; his greatest 
need, as the many abortive attempts at regenera- 
tion on the part of Indian reformers have shown, 
is spiritual power — Life — Life as it is in Jesus 
Christ. And it is the revelation of this life, the 
gospel, which is the '* power of God unto sal- 
vation to every one that believeth " for the Hindu 
as well as the Anglo-Saxon. 



A Village Audience 41 

As we stopped on the roadway in front of the 
carpenter's shop, the crowd swarmed around us, 
doubtless attracted, in the first place, by the 
novel sight of my bicycle. We had no need to 
force our message; in fact it is a contradiction of 
terms to speak of "forcing the gospel"; if the 
propagation of Protestant Christianity is indi- 
vidualised by any principle, it is that of a per- 
sonal and absolutely free acceptance. We neither 
enter their houses nor invade their temples, we 
do not flaunt our message defiantly in their 
sacred places; but standing on a street corner, or 
in the market-place, or seated by special invita- 
tion on one of their broad verandahs, in accor- 
dance with the custom of their own gurils (teach- 
ers) for ages, we expound our teaching. The 
gospel contains its own dynamic, and thrust like 
a loadstone into a village crowd, it draws around 
it those for whom it has some peculiar affinity. 

The occasion of mourning suggested the sub- 
ject of our talk. Nowhere is Hinduism a more 
terrible failure than in the presence of great grief; 
for these sorrowing people it had no hope; their 
loved one had passed on out of their ken, 
whirled upon the endless wheel of rebirths into a 
new sphere, where no memory of the past re- 
mained. But we did not talk to them of Hindu- 



42 Village Work in India 

ism, or of the gods and their stony gaze, but of 
the great heart of God as revealed in the gift of 
His Son, of the death which conquered death, 
and of a life everlasting — the true mukti (salva- 
tion). It is not iconoclasm the Hindu needs, but 
a positive message, a glint of the sunshine of 
God's love, and an escape from the stifling at- 
mosphere of his vain attempts at self-righteous- 
ness. And as we delivered unto them the mes- 
sage, "how that Christ died for our sins, accord- 
ing to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, 
and that He rose again the third day," we could 
see an interest creeping over the faces of many. 
Some it may be were only curious, but that 
young man who has allowed the chilam (pipe) 
to pass unnoticed, that intelligent looking fellow 
who bids his neighbour be quiet while the 
padri sahib is speaking, and the old man with 
soul hunger in his eyes, who pauses on his 
errand at the outskirts of the crowd, have 
thoughts stirring within them that are secrets 
between them and God. 

True it is difficult to get behind the stolid 
countenances of an oriental audience, to separate 
interest from curiosity and lay bare the thoughts 
of their hearts. To some such a service may 
seem as water spilled in the sand; they would 



A Village Audience 43 

counsel us to train and teach, to lift men from 
their degradation, before committing unto them 
the oracles of God. But after all the general 
principles of mission methods are not so much a 
matter of opinion as of revelation. Life, as it is 
in Christ, is not a system of accretions, but a 
growth; it has its beginnings in the mystery of 
birth, springing out of an implanted seed. In 
the Galilean ministry of our Lord, in the service 
of the early apostles, whether among the Jews 
of Jerusalem or the idol-worshippers of Rome 
and the provinces, "it pleased God by the fool- 
ishness of preaching, to save them that believe." 
Doubtless some seed will fall by the wayside, 
and some on stony ground; but the work of the 
missionary is one of faith; we sow in all seasons 
and beside all waters, we have personal dealings 
with but few of those who hear us, we tabulate 
no results, we commit the interested ones to no 
church or society; we deliver the message and 
leave its germination to God. 

After bidding farewell to the carpenters, we 
preached to two other audiences in different 
parts of the village, besides paying a visit to the 
hachahri to call on the Amin. Where the vil- 
lages are large, we often give the whole day, or 
two or three days, even a week, to one place; 



44 Village Work in India 

but more frequently we are forced to reach 
several small villages in the same day. Although 
during the touring season, unless when travel- 
ling, we hold at least five, sometimes seven and 
more meetings a day, we do not bring more 
than ten per cent, of the villages, or six per cent, 
of the people within sound of the gospel during 
the whole year. 

As far as possible, the preaching is followed 
up by the sale of tracts, the occasional visit of a 
native Christian and the recurring annual visit of 
the missionary. Even so, I have been forced to 
hear from the lips of the villagers themselves: 
"Padri Sahib, you come often enough to shake 
our faith in Hinduism and interest us in Chris- 
tianity, but not enough to enable us to under- 
stand it." It is not ambition to cover large terri- 
tory or preach to large numbers that takes us on 
these long tours; frequently we have personal 
invitations to visit distant centres; the Macedo- 
nian appeal seems ever beckoning us on, and the 
sleepless missionary spirit cannot rest while out 
in the regions beyond some soul may be waiting 
for the message. 

Some would counsel us to confine our work 
to a limited number and teach these well. But 
who can confine the Spirit of God? On this 



A Village Audience 45 

very morning as we left the carpenter's shop, a 
man came forward to greet us; he reminded us 
of our visit of two years before and the address 
we gave; it had taken such a hold on him, he 
could remember almost the whole of it. An- 
other brought out the copy of a little tract he 
had bought on the same occasion, whose well 
thumbed pages showed how carefully it had 
been studied. Just a few days before, we had 
preached in a neighbouring village for the first 
time. At the close of our address the better 
part of our audience followed us out about a 
mile on the roadway to plead that we would 
return again soon. Among our preaching party 
on this very occasion, was a young man who 
had himself been arrested in a mad career, and 
finally brought to Christ, by just one such service 
in a distant village. Some of the brightest con- 
verts we have are the fruits of a chance visit to 
some distant village on the part of a missionary 
or native preacher. 1 have known the gospel 
preached almost weekly and even schools held 
continuously for upwards of fifteen years near 
to my own station with less result. On the 
other hand invitations to come and preach in 
some distant part of the field remain uncomplied 
with because of distance and lack of labourers. 



46 Village Work in India 

It is in the face of such facts we have to solve 
the problem of the evangelisation of these dis- 
tricts. "The things of God knoweth no man, 
but the Spirit of God." The destiny wrapped 
up in one seed from the Word of God only He 
can reveal; the Pauls and Peters, who are to 
awaken India to a knowledge of God in Christ, 
may be waiting still in some village as yet un- 
touched by the sound of the gospel. Ours is to 
obey the command and preach to all creatures, 
His to convict and choose the fruit. Moreover 
all are needy, Christ died for all, the bread may 
be little and the children many, but who wiU 
forbid that all should have a share ? 



TV 

REJECTED 

Maheshwar is a devsthdn—a place of the gods 
— and well it is named. Issuing out of the nar- 
row roadway on to the riverside in front of the 
fortress of Ahilibai, a massive pile of palaces, 
turrets and temple domes, we seemed to have 
dropped into a very pantheon of the gods. Be- 
hind the beautiful temple doors above, attended 
and guarded by Anandi the bull, Mdhddev 
(Shiv), the spiritual lord of Nimar, represented by 
the forbidding Unga, sat enshrined in purest 
marble; on either side the great temple was 
flanked by lesser ones, crowded with hideous 
idols; down the broad stone terrace, that for 
nearly one hundred yards paved the ghdt (plat- 
form) in front of the fortress, the eye swept along 
an almost unbroken row of shrines and images; 
even upon the beautiful stairway, which, like a 
fluted edging, runs the whole length of the 
terrace, leading the worshippers down to the 
lapping waters of the Nerbudda, idols had found 
their resting-place; at the street corners and in 

47 



48 Village Work in India 

the market-place of the town above, temple fol- 
lowed shrine in relieving the monotony of bunya 
and incense shops; and in the groves about our 
camp the temple bells clanged noisily, and well- 
fed priests muttered their solemn mantras — truly 
this was a place of the gods. 

Yet with all that was heathenish, the riverside 
presented a beautiful scene. Far up behind the 
fortress walls perched the old palace of Ahilibai,^ 
the renowned queen of the Holkar dynasty, 
whose reign was far famed for its justice of rule 
and its many public works. In front of this lay 
the temple, built for the eternal peace of her soul, 
a monument of carved stone, surrounded with 
beautiful gateways ; and all fronted with a mag- 
nificent facade, a dream in sandstone of lattice- 
work and many pillared galleries, sweeping down 
a grand stairway on to the stone terrace of the 
ghat below. Up and down this stairway and 

1 The daughter-in-law of Mulhar Rao Holkar. This remark- 
able woman, when husband and son were both dead, asserted 
her right to reign, and for thirty years gave to the State of 
Indore a period of peace and prosperity. She took a great in- 
terest in her people, hearing all complaints in person, and was 
noted for her charity and devotion. She it was who built the 
city of Indore, and hewed out of hill and forest the great high- 
way, which, from the present capital, leads over the brow of 
the Vindhyas, through the Jam gate, down to the old capital 
of Maheshwar. 





< 

o 

J 
I— I 

o 

<1 



Rejected 49 

across the platform flitted white robed Brahmins; 
armed sepoys guarded each approach; while 
along the river steps thronged a crowd of busy 
women, chattering and laughing as they went 
about their duties, some at their ablutions, others 
washing clothes, but most coming and going to 
fill their shining brass water-pots, and all pausing 
as they passed to mutter a few words of worship 
at one of the many shrines. It was an ever- 
changing kaleidoscope of many hues and colours 
— shining vessels, laughing faces, bright flutter- 
ing garments and twinkling brown feet. But out 
on the river, their horned backs and protruding 
snouts lying like logs on the water, the hungry 
alligators waited for their prey, while up in the 
temples, behind latticed windows, watched the 
priests. 

Idolatry has its apologists even to-day. The 
Maratha, a Hindu paper, says, " Even the most 
advanced reformer cannot pretend to say that 
every human being is capable of conceiving a 
formless divine being. Our ancestors perceived 
this and hence recommended different sorts of 
worship for different sorts of people. As in 
every other department, the law of evolution 
must be applied also in religion." What are the 
facts ? There was a time, in the Vedic period of 



50 Village Work in India 

Indian history, when idol worship was unknown, 
when, as one of her own sons says, ** India sang 
the glory of the Eternal Spirit, the Param Atmd." 
But with the introduction of Puranic idolatry, 
with the attempt to clothe human images with 
divinity and change the glory of the uncorruptible 
God into an image made like to corruptible man, 
there came a fall. " As we roll down the stream 
of time," says Keshub Chunder Sen, "from an- 
cient to modern India, we are indeed grieved to 
find how, amidst successive changes, a higher 
and purer faith has gradually degenerated into 
debasing forms of idolatry and superstition, and 
how, in consequence of the later corruptions of 
Hinduism, the country has gone down century 
after century in a course of moral and spiritual 
decadence." In the writings of Abbe Dubois one 
sees something of the degradation to which 
idolatry had brought India before the preaching 
of Christ began to stem the tide of her down- 
ward career. But even to-day what could be 
worse than sakti worship or the avowed prac- 
tices of the Mdhdrdj sect ? What must be the 
effects of the worship of Ganesha as the god of 
wisdom, identified, as he is in the village mind, 
only with the puerile stories of his gluttony and 
how he gained his elephant head } What mis- 



Rejected 5 1 

sionary has not known the awful fruits of 
Krishna worship, sanctioning by his foul ex- 
ample the grossest vice? What is the terrible 
effect upon the worshipper of bowing before the 
vile Linga ? I have seen with my own eyes, I 
have known of things in this very town of Ma- 
heshwar, connected with this degrading form of 
the worship of Shiv that are too awful for de- 
scription. 

Instead of an evolution from idolatry, the his- 
tory of religion in India would show a constant 
retrogression into worse forms of idolatry. It is 
an eternal principle that everything which comes 
between the worshipper and the one living and 
true God, whether it be philosophical system, 
ritual practices or an image, shuts out the wor- 
shipper from personal and quickening touch with 
God; and nowhere has the truth of this been 
more terribly exemplified than in India. Instead 
of lifting the Hindus up to God, idolatry has only 
dragged them down to a participation in the im- 
moral and vicious practices of the gods whom 
they worship. 

It is not easy perhaps for an ousider to be quite 
just in discussing an alien religion, even as to its 
idol-worship. One would like to think that 
there may be something behind even this monu- 



52 Village Work in India 

mental folly of the human race that is struggling 
for light, seeking to touch the skirts of the 
divine. Doubtless there are some who see be- 
yond the image some nebulous spiritual idea, in 
whose hearts is a sincere longing for God, but 
who find nothing beyond their idolatrous heritage 
through which to express it; others there are 
who, while they profess to see nothing in the 
image, cling to it simply from custom or through 
fear; and there are many, I rejoice to say an ever 
increasing number, who, in the light of purer 
Christian ideals, have boldly given up all idol- 
worship. But it cannot be denied that the great 
majority of India's people, especially in the vil- 
lages, are real idolaters. Whatever hazy idea 
some of them may have of the all-pervading 
Brahma, their thoughts in worship do not rise 
beyond the idol itself. The very ceremony of 
prdn pratishthd, by which the piece of wood or 
stone is endued with divinity, points to this; the 
superstitious reverence which surrounds every- 
thing connected with the idol and its temple, 
finds in this its only full explanation; and many 
a time have I had it flung in my face: "These 
are our gods." And it is true; the monkey-faced 
Hanumdn, the elephant-headed Ganesha, the 
vile Linga, the shapeless Mdtd Devi, the licen- 



Rejected 53 

tious Krishna, the bloodthirsty Kdli and many 
million others, these are thy gods, O India! 

Idolatry is not native to the Hindu, it is a can- 
cerous growth, and there is no hope for India 
except in a relentless and entire crushing out of 
the whole system as a foul disease. Well said 
the founder of the Brahmo Somaj, already quoted, 
"There can be no doubt that the root of all the 
evils which afflict Hindu society, that which con- 
stitutes the chief cause of its degradation, is 
idolatry. Idolatry is the curse of Hindustan, the 
deadly canker that has eaten into the vitals of 
native society. ... It will not do to retain in 
the mind a speculative and passive belief in its 
dogmas; you must practically break with it as a 
dangerous sin and an abomination. You must 
give it up altogether as an unclean thing. You 
must discountenance it, discourage it, oppose it, 
and hunt it out of your country." 

It was seldom the people of Maheshwar saw 
an European, and many years since they had 
been visited by a missionary; yet there was a 
suspicion about the ignorance of this village 
crowd, and a hostility in their demeanour, which 
seemed peculiar to this god-ridden atmosphere. 
The uncouth soldiers shouted at us as we crossed 
the platform, the priests' satellites showered 



54 Village Work in India 

orders till we were in a maze, and 1 had to call 
the most clamorous of them aside and tell him 
that we would be glad to hear anything they had 
to say, in a gentler tone, but that we were neither 
dogs nor cattle. 

The objection to us was not on account of our 
being missionaries; few, if any, knew the pur- 
pose of our visit. The trouble arose from the 
suspicions of the priests; we were strangers and 
of an alien religion, whose advent would disturb 
their superstitious hold on the people; and they 
feared us as the darkness dreads the light. It 
appeared that there were certain regulations as 
to where men wearing boots should walk; and 
though we had observed many of the Hindus 
defiling the sacred places with their shoe leather, 
before we were called in question, we were not 
desirous of in any way infringing on the rules. 
But simple obedience was not enough, and some 
of the coarser in the crowd would have hunted 
us out of the place; when I mentioned that we 
had come to see the Amin, and, drawing out my 
note-book, asked for their names. This was 
sufficient, the objectors drew away, and some of 
the more courteous in the crowd showed us the 
way to the Amin's house, which was situated in 
the fortress. We found him in his daftar, a 



Rejected 55 

broad room with many quaintly carved windows, 
and walls decorated in blue and yellow with im- 
possible horses and elephants. The carved 
wooden pillars that supported the low roof di- 
vided it off into sections, in one of which the 
object of our quest, clothed in immaculate white, 
was seated dictating to his clerk. The sepoy at 
the door would have made us take off our boots 
to enter "The Presence"; but the Amin himself 
coming forward to welcome us, ordered out a 
couch and bade us be seated. Short, but well- 
proportioned, with a handsome, agreeable face, 
he was a good-natured, pleasant spoken man, in 
whom we soon realised that we had found a 
friend. He talked to us freely about a visit he 
had once paid to Europe with the Holkar, and 
seemed interested in our coming and our work, 
asking us to hold a meeting in his house. Like 
many of the more thoughtful of even the village 
people, he was beginning to feel the shadow of 
the inevitable when the Nazarene would displace 
the grinning gods of the temple below. 

But the temper of the Amin was not reflected 
by the people of the bazaar. We returned to 
the market-place to find the Christian preachers 
the centre of a gesticulating, howling mob, who 
were threatening them with clubs and stones. 



56 Village Work in India 

Evidently the priests had been at work, for we 
could see their clean-shaven heads, with broad 
tika'^ marks, conspicuous among the leaders of 
the rabble. The wretched sepoys were power- 
less, and stood idly by, evidently sympathising 
with the crowd. It may be our men were not 
sufficiently tactful, or perhaps their position was 
not well chosen, in the open market-place and 
so near a temple; but there was a malignity 
about this opposition that had in it the bitterness 
of ignorant hatred for the name of Christ. 
When we appeared, the vituperation was turned 
on us. I got our little party to one side and 
sought to draw around us the less unfriendly, 
telling them we had come neither to injure them 
nor curse their gods, but to give them a message 
we had brought from far over the "black 
water." But neither respect for our request, the 
presence of my wife, nor the curiosity of the 
crowd could stop the malignity of the Brahmin 
clique and their followers. One of them, burst- 
ing with a venom of hate, came close up, and, 
shaking his stick, hissed out a threat to lead a 
mob to our tents and destroy them and us. We 
were not afraid, but it was evident our message 
was not wanted nor was a howling mob, armed 

1 Marks on the forehead signifying religious cult. 



Rejected 57 

with stones and clubs, and poisoned with preju- 
dice, a likely soil for receiving the Word. We 
gradually withdrew, the mob following us, 
hooting and threatening, to the very gates. 

And here, without the gates, we found our 
work. Every town and village in India has its 
poor quarter, usually a collection of rude, 
thatched huts, the homes of the Chamdrs or 
leather workers, the Mdngs, the Mahdrs and 
the Bhalais, the labouring or coolie classes, who 
form the great commonalty of India. It is not 
their poverty, however, which causes their sepa- 
ration, for among them are some who have ac- 
cumulated wealth and built good houses, even 
temples, for themselves; but they are below that 
sharp line of demarkation which distinguishes 
high from low ; they are the outcasted, the ig- 
norant, degraded and superstitious masses, who 
are despised by the higher castes, denied many 
of the commonest rights of man, and deprived 
almost of hope both here and hereafter. 

A little way outside the gate we came on a 
group of Bhalais, beneath a nim tree in front of 
the shoemaker's shop, idly gossiping after their 
morning's work in the fields. They had no 
sympathy with the disturbance in the city. In 
their own way they were probably just as 



58 Village Work in India 

bigoted and even more ignorant, but their world 
was a different one, and the high caste quarrels 
were none of theirs. 

'* Would you like to hear us sing?" I asked, 
after the usual greetings. 

"Yes, Padri Sahib," came from several of 
them together. 

So, squatting on the edge of the shoemaker's 
verandah, we sang for them that sweet lyric 
" Yishu Masih." 

"Will not the padri sahibs sing it again?" 
they asked, when we were through. So again 
we sang to them : 

" Yis^u Masih mero pr&na dachaiyd, 
Jo pdpi Yishu kane Awe 
Yishu hai wdki mukt i karaiyd.** 
(Jesus saves my soul. 
Let sinners come, whoever will, 
Christ will make them whole.) 

How wonderful is the power of song. Their 
faces lit up and eyes glistened as we sang over 
and over again the glad refrain "Jesus saves my 
soul"; and a sad look of reality and longing 
stole over them at the words: 

" Gahiri wuh nad iyd ndwa purdni^ 
Yishu hai mero pdra karaiyd." 
(The stream is deep, the boat is old, 
But Jesus bears us over.) 



Rejected ^g 

Song after song we sang to an audience that 
never seemed to grow tired, even the women 
crowding out from the neighbouring doorways. 
After each song we explained its meaning, but 
none seemed to have the power of the first; 
"Jesus saves my soul" was their favourite, and 
before we left we had to sing it again. Thus 
feathered with song was the gospel message 
shot home to their simple hearts; and with the 
refrain ringing in their ears, we left them to the 
message and God. 

Not only did I think it inadvisable, after the 
display against us in the bazaar, even to accept 
the Amin's invitation, but my wife was taken 
suddenly ill, and before we had time for an- 
other service, we had to pack up and hurry 
back to Mhow, driving all night through the 
deep, dark jungle, with only a lantern to pick 
out the way. It was a full year before we 
again visited this place of the gods. As we 
were putting up our tents under a wide-spread- 
ing mango-tree, in the grove outside the city, we 
suddenly heard away down the river the voice of 
singing. As it approached nearer we could rec- 
ognise the refrain, and soon the full song burst 
upon our ears, " Yishu Masih mero prdna 
bachaiyd" (Jesus saves my soul). It was the 



6o Village Work in India 

voice of one of the young men to whom, when 
spurned by priest and Brahmin, we had turned 
and taught the gospel. The song had lived, as 
only Christian song can live, to blossom out in 
God's own time into glad new life. 

On this occasion we remained three days in 
Maheshwar, working quietly through the bazaars 
and among the separate castes in their own ma- 
hallas (districts). We made many friends, even 
among the Brahmins, several of whom, inclu- 
ding the Amin, visited us at our camp. Our old 
friends, the Bhalais, their duties in the fields be- 
ing somewhat slackened, were glad to see us, 
and we had many talks with them and their 
neighbours, the Chamdrs, about the New Way. 
One old man who remembered well a visit 
payed years before by Campbell Sahib, seemed 
to have got a clear hold of the truth; but custom 
and the ties of caste had grown strong with 
years, and though he set his face against the 
follies of Hinduism, he did not seem willing to 
go further. 

On our third visit we brought the gospel tent. 
This was a large, disused mess tent, with two 
poles, a ridge and detachable sides; and was 
capable of seating 200 or more within, and, with 
one side open, two or even three times that 



Rejected 6l 

number within hearing distance without. It 
gave us the great advantage of having the meet- 
ings more directly under our own control; peo- 
ple were quieter, stayed longer, and were more 
attentive, when comfortably seated on our big 
cotton rugs, with the two tent lanterns burning 
brightly overhead, the organ playing and the 
whole meeting more of the nature of an invita- 
tion to our home. Then it was more exclusive; 
while we always made arrangement so that the 
low-caste people, and even the women, had 
their places, we could insist on quietness and 
eject those who were bent on disturbance. 
From the Amin we obtained permission to erect 
it in a vacant space just outside the gate. And 
here, for a week, we gathered day and night 
crowds numbering sometimes from 500 to 800 
people, who, with but few exceptions, and these 
were generally overawed by the rest, gave us the 
closest attention while we told them the story of 
the Cross. 

On the last evening we held a plain gospel 
meeting, without either lantern or pictures. 
There were probably 600 people present, seated, 
as many as possible, inside, but more outside 
the tent. There was some noise and a little dis- 
order in getting the audience seated, but as soon 



62 Village Work in India 

as the strains of the organ arose and the singing 
began, everything grew quiet, except for a few 
Mohammedan youths evidently bent on mischief. 
Our subject for the evening was the life and 
work of Christ; one after another our little band 
rose and told in simple words the wonderful 
story, no one being allowed to speak so long as 
to tire the audience. While they spoke the tent 
lanterns lit up a touching scene; from the midst 
of keen brown faces, and from beneath many 
varied turbans, the broad red puggarees of the 
Brahmins, the nondescript headgear of the 
crowd, and the apologetic strip of cotton crown- 
ing the head of the urchin, there looked up sharp 
intelligent eyes that seemed to tell of souls 
awakening, as though the Christ Message had 
struck a slumbering chord. In the midst of the 
meeting the Mohammedan badmdshes (rowdies) 
made a determined attempt to stampede the au- 
dience; but the Spirit was there in power and 
they got little or no following; it just served to 
sift the audience. We had no means of measur- 
ing the interest, but what could speak more 
plainly than that this ignorant, prejudiced, vil- 
lage mob should sit and listen for the better part 
of an hour to a story that had nothing in it of 
jest or amusement or of the gossip of the market- 



Rejected 63 

place ? Surely in this place of the gods, behind 
all the multiplicity of idols, there was a great de- 
sire after the truth, and a soul hunger on the part 
of some for a view of God that would fill up 
their vision and satisfy their hearts. 

The next morning one of the town officials, a 
Mohammedan, sent a present over to me asking 
that I would call and see him. *'I want to tell 
thee, Padri Sahib," he said, "how much I be- 
lieve in what thou dost preach and what happi- 
ness it would give me to see one of thy disciples 
established here to teach the people about the 
Christ." He then offered not only to he?p us get 
a house but to pay something towards the wages 
of such a teacher, if I would send him in. But 
it was impossible; I had already more outstations 
than 1 could properly supply, and I could simply 
promise to pass the offer on to the Church at 
home that controlled the supply. 

The crowning victory, however, came a year 
later, when one evening upon the same market 
square, that had first witnessed our disheartening 
defeat, the Christian preachers gathered a con- 
gregation of over a thousand people. It was a 
clear, cold night in January, and the darkened 
street was thronged on both sides of the magic- 
lantern sheet; some were seated on the shop 



64 Village Work in India 

verandahs, some in carts, some even on the 
steps of the temple, but most were standing in 
the open roadway. No single voice could reach 
such a crowd; so one on one side of the sheet, 
and another on the other, our men preached for 
over an hour the same Old Story, and to the same 
people who a few years before had been so eager 
to murder them. There was no attempt at in- 
terruption; out in the still night air they stood, a 
mass of dark upturned faces, as if some strange 
hypnotic influence had bewitched them; while, 
picture after picture, the Bible scenes were flashed 
before them and their story unfolded. The fury 
of hate had broken down, opposition had been 
overcome, and the attention of the people 
gained. Doubtless, hatred still remained, the 
priests looked down from behind the latticed 
windows no more sympathetically; but without 
force or threatening, without the intervention of 
human power, the sympathy of the people had 
been gained — the Nazarene had conquered. 

Some short time afterwards I had the privilege 
of receiving into the Church of Christ one of the 
Bhalais from Maheshwar, the *' Place of the 
Gods." It was the young man of the song — 
Jesus Christ had saved his souL 



V 

UNDER THE MANGO-TREES 

The heavy morning's work was over; we had 
just risen from our late breakfast of daliya, ddl 
and rice; and now, seated in the shelter of our 
tent beneath the mango-trees, were giving our- 
selves to rest and the drowsy scene before us. 
The tide of noon was just on the turn and one 
could almost hear the solemn set of day. It 
brought out into sharper contrast the hum of in- 
sect life, the occasional caw of a disturbed crow, 
the deep gutturals of the field labourers and the 
shriller and more peremptory commands of the 
women. Just beyond the thorny hedge, that 
fronted the mango-grove, the bullock carts jolted 
lazily along the sunken jungle track, the glint of 
the red turbans and many coloured saris of their 
occupants bobbing up and down in unison with 
the ruts of the roadway; while away beyond, 
the fields of jowdr and alsi, cotton and sannUy 
varied by occasional patches of opium and gar- 
den stuff, bathed themselves in the molten sun- 
shine. Groups of curious children in their still 

6s 



66 Village Work in India 

more curious garments hung around the camp, 
discussing in eager tones the advent and be- 
longings of the white strangers. Save for the 
scratching of my pen and the rustling of a news- 
paper in the neighbouring tent, the camp itself 
was at rest, the native brethren enjoying a well 
earned sleep after the morning's long and dusty 
tramp. 

"Sahib," I looked up from my writing to see 
one of the Christian preachers before me. '* Is 
it time for the class ? " It is our custom to spend 
an hour every afternoon in camp over some Bible 
study with the native workers, following the 
course laid down by Presbytery. Before the 
lesson was more than half over visitors were an- 
nounced from the village, the schoolmaster and 
several Brahmin officials. On going out I found 
them waiting on the outskirts of the camp to be 
mvited to come near. Very picturesque they 
appeared in their clean white garments, broad 
Maratha turbans and silk scarfs, as they stood 
out in bold relief against the foliage. But it was 
not this that riveted attention so much as the 
look of intelligence and assurance, mingled with 
a sort of unconscious, childlike ignorance that 
was depicted on their faces. 

There is no class of India's people to whom 



Under the Mango-Trees 67 

the mind of all who are interested in her destiny 
more instinctively turns than the educated Brah- 
mins. Keen and subtle of thought, with re- 
markable penetration and retentiveness, these 
high-caste Hindus are intellectually one of the 
most potential classes in human society. Pro- 
portionately they are not numerous; the whole 
Brahmin community does not number ten per cent, 
of the population and only a section of these is 
educated ; the whole college and high school atten- 
dance for India being only twenty one-hundredth 
per cent, of the school going age. But if few in 
proportion they are still large in numbers. There 
are more students in attendance on the universi- 
ties and colleges of India than at all the colleges 
of Great Britain. Moreover they have a far more 
than proportional influence. It is too early to 
speak of leaders among the Christians of India, 
and they may yet be chosen from the Chamdrs 
(tanners) and fishermen; but this we do know 
that the converted Brahmin will be a man of in- 
fluence and power. He is more difficult to reach, 
more barriers have to be overcome, more preju- 
dices met; but the fruit, however difficult to ob- 
tain, is well worth the effort. We can afford to 
be indifferent to his pride and scorn, to bear with 
his egotism and conceit and be patient with his 



68 Village Work in India 

many follies and weaknesses, for the intelligent 
Brahmin, truly converted, will be power for 
Christ's kingdom. This community appeals to 
us, moreover, not only from the standpoint of 
their possibilities, but of their needs. As a class, 
they lack virility and moral stamina; they are 
moved by no inflexible, eternal purpose; they 
are still either bound to the wheel of a fatalistic 
inheritance of caste rule and custom, or are out 
on the sea of life, like driftwood, the plaything 
of circumstances, the children of fate. 

Unlike the ordinary villager, however, the edu- 
cated Hindu is difficult to reach. He makes a 
poor street listener; pride of birth and position 
forbids his herding with the common crowd, 
while consciousness of superiority shuts him out 
from accepting the simplicity which appeals to 
ordinary minds. He must be reached in some 
other way. It is a mistake, however, to imagine 
that the Brahmin is not open to direct religious 
influences, that he will not listen to a gospel 
address or converse as to his religious condition. 
Some of the brightest gospel meetings I have 
attended in India have been among the educated 
classes; and I have found no class more sym- 
pathetic in private conversation concerning the 
deep things of life and our relation to God. 



Under the Mango-Trees 69 

Though they do not attend our street preaching, 
they gladly come to the magic lantern meetings 
and to services specially arranged for them ; and 
at most of the large places we visit on tour they 
come to talk with us at our tents. 

While I went forward to welcome our visitors 
one of the helpers brought out our few camp- 
chairs; but as there were not enough to go 
around, they refused to be seated without me, 
until we compromised by bringing out one of 
the camp-beds. It is not always easy to tell just 
the object of such visits; the Hindu does not 
state his business, it must be drawn from him. 
It may be simply curiosity to see the baby organ 
or to be photographed, it may be a desire to 
practice English or solicit our influence with some 
official; some, however, come to talk of the 
things concerning God, and for the sake of these 
we welcome all. 

Before we could get down to a satisfactory 
talk on religion it was necessary to locate our 
visitors. Even in this distant village, where the 
educated community numbered not more than 
half a score, various religious opinions were 
represented. The schoolmaster, I found, be- 
longed to the Arya Somaj, the compounder from 
the Native dispensary talked of Neo-Hinduism, 



yo Village Work in India 

while the others vacillated between these and 
orthodoxy. The religious thought of educated 
India is a restless, storm-tossed sea. Great forces 
have been at work: a beneficent Government, 
contact with Europe and western ideas, the flood 
of English literature first let loose by Carey and 
his followers, but above all a century of the 
teaching of Jesus have wrought havoc with many 
of her ideas. She has broken from superstitions 
and prejudices hoary with the slavish service of 
ages; she has become ashamed of her idolatry 
and the grosser ceremonies of her religion; she 
has been awakened to higher ideals and the 
expurgation from her religious thought and 
teaching of the corrupt accretions of later cen- 
turies. ** Back to the Vedas " is the cry of her 
religious leaders, who are seeking to build out of 
the philosophy of the past a new religion suited 
to the needs of the present. 

Spite however of these changes, the heart of 
Hinduism has not been renewed; the same old 
eclectic spirit remains, that sucked at the breast 
of Buddhism and the animistic religions in turn, 
and that would fain place Christ in her pantheon 
along with Ram and Krishna. Hinduism is not 
the history of a great spiritual ideal, slowly de- 
veloping and seizing upon the minds and hearts 



Under the Mango-Trees 71 

of India's people; but rather the story of Brah- 
min subtlety, whereby, in order not only to re- 
tain the allegiance of their own, but to woo into 
that allegiance each conquered people, they have 
departed from the loftier character of their Aryan 
forefathers, and, sacrificing integrity to specious- 
ness, have corrupted the simpler and purer Vedic 
ideals, welding more firmly the bonds of caste, 
and ever adding fetich, idol or ceremony, ac- 
cording to the demands of its votaries. But 
what word can describe that multiform creation 
of Brahmin genius, with its subtle philosophies 
and puerile superstitions, its lofty ideals and re- 
volting ceremonies, with its omniverous appetite 
that has sated itself upon the gods and super- 
stitions of every people over whom she has ob- 
tained sway, till her beliefs are past systema- 
tising and her deities past reckoning ? And just 
as when the humane element of Buddhism ap- 
pealed to the hearts of India's people, the Brah- 
mins incorporated this as part of their teaching 
and made Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu, so 
would orthodox Hinduism deal with Christianity 
to-day. Against this degraded Hinduism, how- 
ever, many of the better minds of new India, 
fascinated with Christian ideals, are in revolt; 
and they seek in the literature of the Vedas those 



72 Village Work in India 

purer ideals of God and righteousness that have 
grown up in their minds from contact with the 
life and spirit of Christ and His followers. A 
new meaning of the word *' religion" is laying 
hold of them ; contact with the West is reveal- 
ing to them, as one of their own papers puts it, 
"that whilst an Englishman's religion consists in 
his faith in principles, the religion of a Hindu 
consists in conformity to custom " ; and a hunger 
for the real is growing up in their hearts. 

Nothing could be more discouraging, however, 
than the failure of these attempts to establish a 
pure and vital religion by an appeal to the past. 
The history of Hinduism reveals many attempts 
at reformation by a discarding of excrescences 
and a reestablishment of the past. *'But" as 
the Hindu, a non-Christian paper, says, "Hindu 
Protestantism never made a lasting mark; and 
to-day, as ever in the centuries that have elapsed, 
the incubus of custom has blighted the prospects 
of the Hindu peoples and stood in the way 
of their coalescing into a nation sensible of 
their immense strength and power for good." 
Such an acknowledgment by one of themselves, 
of the futility of Hindu Protestant movements 
can only be interpreted as a growing conviction, 
on the part of those for whom it speaks, that it 



Under the Mango-Trees 73 

is not within, not from any appeal to the past, 
that India's salvation is to arise. What the Hindu 
is toilsomely learning by many sad experiences 
is that though there is much that is beautiful, much 
that considered historically is truly marvellous in 
Vedic literature, it has no message of salvation, 
no life for the soul that is dead in sin. We must 
judge the Vedas not by their choicest frag- 
ments but by their general spirit. Dr. Caldwell 
says: "If any person reads the hymns of 
the Vedas for the first time, he will be struck 
with surprise at the utterly worldly, unethical, 
unspiritual tone by which they are generally per- 
vaded." There is in them as Dr. MacDonald 
says, ''no zeal for righteousness" nor for the 
glory of God. With all their attractiveness they 
leave the hungry soul unsatisfied ; and it is this 
conviction that is slowly driving many in India 
to Christ. 

Our visitors were not men of deep convictions; 
"getting on," which in their case meant govern- 
ment preferment, was perhaps the motive power 
of their lives; and yet they gave no little thought 
to questions of religion, nor were they at all 
reticent in talking about them. It would be im- 
possible to give a succinct account of our con- 
versation; the schoolmaster was spokesman, the 



74 Village Work in India 

others only dropping an occasional word, and 
probably he had some idea of the impression he 
would make in suggesting the visit to our camp. 
The discussion, though interesting, was profita- 
ble rather in the opportunity it gave for pressing 
home acknowledged truths. It is marvellous 
how little even the educated Hindu really knows 
concerning either Vedic literature or the history 
of Hinduism, beyond the stories of the Ramdyana 
and Mdhdbhdrata, the mantras he has learned 
from the family priest and what he has picked 
up from discussions or the native press. But he 
is strongly moved by jealousy for Hindu tradi- 
tions and a sort of false patriotism, that often- 
times make him openly hostile to the aggressive 
propaganda of Christianity: the distinctive fea- 
ture of the Arya Somaj preaching in these vil- 
lages was opposition to Christianity. Others 
however, convinced, perhaps in spite of them- 
selves, of the ethical truth of Christianity, and 
the beauty of the character of Christ, attempt 
rather a defence of Hinduism by showing in how 
many ways it parallels Christianity. That there 
are many affinities between Hinduism and Chris- 
tianity no careful student will deny, some which, 
so far as can be traced, are of independent origin 
in both, and others which it is claimed Hinduism 



Under the Mango-Trees i^ 

owes to Christian influence. Such points of 
contact are to be found in the doctrines of incar- 
nation, vicarious atonement, immortality, future 
rewards and punishments and others. In fact 
ahnost every outstanding feature of Hinduism 
contains a truth, more or less exaggerated and 
almost invariably perverted to some ulterior end. 
Religion in India is like the ever-changing scenes 
of a kaleidoscope; sublime spiritual thought is 
often found side by side with debasing ritual and 
gross sensuality. The same system that has fed 
the lust of the debauchee has, with deep subtlety, 
been given some mystic significance for the 
spiritual devotee. 

Although the schoolmaster was somewhat in- 
definite in his ideas of Hinduism, his shrewdness 
was quick to detect anything of the nature of 
affinity, and the spirit of enquiry was at work. 
Like the rest of his compatriots he was jealous 
also for the traditional religion and prompt to re- 
sent any lack of justice towards it. I fear that 
oftentimes we missionaries, impressed with the 
awful contrast between the grosser side of Hin- 
duism and Christian morality, have been slow to 
discern and acknowledge its hidden truths. The 
cause of Christ has everything to gain from such 
an acknowledgment. Exaggerated views as to 



76 Village Work in India 

the potential good in Hinduism 'and its relative 
merits and demerits have crept into western 
literature, which can be corrected only by a clear 
setting forth of these truths from a Christian 
standpoint. Moreover it is most essential that 
the missionary especially should have a clear idea 
as to the Hindu's view-point; while injustice to 
the traditions of her religion will only bar the 
way to the hearts of India's people, nothing per- 
haps will more quickly convince them as to the 
absolute insufficiency of Hinduism, than a clear 
setting forth of its truth and untruth and the 
great contrast between its general view-point 
and that of Christianity. We must lead the 
Hindu to see that though there are great truths in 
Hinduism, they are only partial and perverted, 
and that even separated from the grosser accre- 
tions of later centuries, they contain in them- 
selves no dynamic for solving the great problems 
of sin and salvation, no divine Man to lead the 
way to God. They are but water in a stagnant 
pool, which will be of service only when they 
have been distilled in the alembic of the Sun of 
Righteousness. 

Though our visitors posed as enlightened and 
reformed, we could not but notice many man- 
nerisms paying unconscious tribute to custom 



Under the Mango-Trees 77 

and caste. The tone of voice towards the serv- 
ant, the unconscious drawing aside of the gar- 
ments as he passed, showed that the same spirit 
of intolerance still dominated their actions, the 
same intellectual conceit and pride in their Brah- 
minical traditions still blocked the way to their 
spiritual welfare. The fact is the educated Hindu 
leads a double life. That he is captivated by the 
intellectual and spiritual atmosphere of the domi- 
nant race is best attested by his many efforts at 
imitation; he speaks English on every occasion, 
even to his fellows; he is in many cases fairly 
well acquainted with English thought and litera- 
ture; he is opposed to the gross incongruities of 
Hindu life; and is an advocate of social as well 
as religious reform. But there is another side to 
his life; very few of the women are drawn up 
even within sight of his public level; and so in 
the home, where some ignorant mother's or 
grandmother's prejudice and superstition are 
law, he must sink down to theirs, practicing in 
private the very absurdities he so unsparingly 
denounces in public. Woman, for so many 
years depressed, is unconsciously having her 
revenge, and upon her salvation depends the 
welfare of her sons; for India, like the rest of 
the world, will never rise higher than the level 



78 Village Work in India 

of her women. The resultant character of such 
a double life is not hopeful, but it defines the 
struggle; caste prejudice, ignorant superstition. 
Brahmin pride, and intellectual conceit on the 
one side, with an innate desire for something 
better and all the forces that go to fulfill that de- 
sire on the other. 

A wave of pity swept over us as we talked 
with our visitors. They had all the miserable 
heritage of the past against them ; the fatal 
glamour of a pantheistic philosophy and the 
spell of caste prejudice were woven into the very 
fibre of their being, paralysing every tendency 
to personal dealing with God or the exercise of 
freedom; to them rehgion had always been a 
round of punctilious observances, God was an 
idea and truth a name. And yet there was much 
that was hopeful in their outlook ; the very 
Christian ethics which the cults they represented 
had appropriated as their own, presented them 
with ideals that, spite of their Vedic labels, were 
potential with revolution both social and religious; 
some of them, too, had been in contact with 
Christian teaching in the Mission schools, and 
were not unacquainted with the gospel story. 
But the educated Hindu is neither to be argued 
nor drilled into the Christian faith, there is no 



Under the Mango-Trees 79 

translation for the word "responsibility" in his 
vocabulary, and with his fatalistic view of life, 
he has no theological fears nor does an appeal to 
the danger of his position touch him; he will be 
won when he is won by the invincible attractive- 
ness of the personality of Christ. 

Perhaps our talk did not produce conviction, 
but it did not lower their ideals; we sought to 
bring them into touch with Christ; and that 
something of His spirit had caught and dominated 
their feelings towards us and our message we 
were made to feel by an act of friendliness on 
the following day. Our Brahmin friends invited 
us to a feast. The hosts' accommodation was 
small but they made up for it by the warmth of 
their hospitality. We were received in a small 
room not six feet square, whose mud walls were 
decorated with coloured designs of impossible 
men and animals; together with a few prints 
from some English newspaper. A native carpet 
covered part of the floor, while an English lamp 
and a couple of chairs showed the inevitable 
march of Anglicising influences. Soon the khdna 
(meal) was announced; and, escorted by our 
hosts, we proceeded to a long, low room, void 
of any furniture except a few stools not more 
than four inches high, and on which we were 



8o Village Work in India 

seated while we ate our meal off plates of dried 
leaves, laid out on the newly plastered floor. 
Our hosts, though caste forbade them eating, 
waited on us with their own hands. A descrip- 
tion of the food would be almost unintelligible to 
an English reader; needless to say the menu in- 
cluded no meats, but consisted mainly of curries, 
rice, breadstuffs fried in glii (butter) and all 
served cold. These were followed by various 
kinds of sweetmeats, some quite tasty. After 
the feast was over we adjourned to the little 
room, where pan supdri (betel nut) was served 
and we were decorated with garlands of jasmine 
and roses. Native food is not always to 
English taste, but the condiment that made all 
palatable was the evident desire on the part 
of our friends to make us welcome and do us 
honour. 

The heart goes out after such young men, with 
their immense possibilities, and one cannot but 
feel that little after all is being done for them. 
Some are reached by the institutions of higher 
learning; but when we realise that out of the 
twenty-four colleges in Calcutta only four are 
missionary, and of the twenty-one colleges and 
professional schools in Bombay Presidency only 
two are Christian, we see what an immense pro- 



Under the Mango-Trees 81 

portion of even the student population are away 
from such contact, to say nothing of the immense 
numbers who have either passed beyond school in- 
fluence or whose whole training has been at secular 
institutions. What is wanted is a special evan- 
gelistic propaganda for the educated classes along 
the lines adopted by the foreign department of 
the Y. M. C. A. in the presidency cities: — special 
meetings to reach those who are not met by the 
ordinary evangelistic methods, only reaching out 
as far as possible into every town and village. 
Upwards of 3,000,000 of these young men speak 
English and could be reached through that 
medium. Surely here is an opportunity worthy 
of more of the leaders of Christian thought in the 
home lands giving at least a portion of their time 
to India's evangelisation, as has already been so 
fruitfully done by the lectures on the Haskell 
foundation. The hopes for this work cannot be 
better expressed than in the words of the founder 
of one of their own sects, Keshub Chunder Sen, 
—''All India must believe that Christ is the Son 
of God. Nay, more than this, I will make my- 
self bold to prophesy, all India will one day 
acknowledge Jesus Christ as the atonement, the 
universal atonement for all mankind. He has 
given His precious blood for all of us whether we 



82 Village Work in India 

believe it or not. ... He has done His work, 
let us do ours. Let us believe that He has died 
for you and me, and the atonement on our side 
is completed." 



VI 

NIGHT WORK IN THE BAZAAR 

The Indian village is a microcosm, a little 
world in itself, independent, and, save for a few 
articles of commerce, self-contained. It con- 
sists of two straggling lines of rude, tile-roofed 
houses facing the roadway and main artery of 
traffic, with, it may be, a few side streets leading 
off to groups of still simpler structures, the 
homes of the low-caste labouring classes, who 
form the larger part of the village community. 
Round about it are grouped the village pond or 
tank, wells, groves and fields, the title to the 
latter being hereditary with the cultivators, who 
pay rental, according to the productiveness of 
the soil, to the Zaminddr or landed proprietor 
of the district, as representing the central power. 
In addition to the field-labourers, the population 
consists of a group of agriculturists with their 
patel, patwdri (accountant), shopkeepers, car- 
penter, blacksmith, barber and watchman, each 
working for and dependent on the rest. The 

affairs of the village are managed by the hered- 

83 



84 Village Work in India 

itary headman, his assistant officials and council 
or panchdyat, with reference in criminal cases to 
the central authority. 

From time immemorial the village has been 
India's political unit, the oldest of her monu- 
ments. Where cities of palaces have fallen and 
crumbled away, the ruined village, phoenix-like, 
has reared again its mud walls and presented its 
red-tiled roofs to the sun and rains of heaven. 
In the heart of no man does the love of the spot 
where he was born seem more deeply rooted 
than in that of the Hindu; cases have been 
known of where, in troublous times, villagers, 
having been driven from their homes, have 
returned, after the second or third generation, 
and entered on the possession of their roofless 
walls and waste fields with as little litigation 
as though their absence had been that of a 
day. 

Here also lies embalmed India's conservatism. 
One can see to-day, trailing out in the early 
morning across the oxen's yoke, the same rude 
plough that was used in the times of their Aryan 
forefathers; within the mud walls two women 
sit grinding at the same rude stone mills; the 
same fireplace and simple utensils, that make up 
the household furnishings, still line the walls; 



Night Work in the Bazaar 85 

while their few wants are provided for in the 
same old way. 

Standing at the village end in the early even- 
ing, watching the labourers gathering in from 
the fields and the cattle winding their dusty way 
from the distant jungle, with a babble of strange 
chattering voices buzzing in the ears, and a quickly- 
changing panorama of oriental colours flitting 
before the eyes, against a background of dull 
grey dust and mud, with here and there the 
glimpse of whitewashed walls or gaudily-hued 
temple, and in the distance the unskilled notes of 
some native instrument rising above the din, one 
can almost imagine himself dropped into some 
picture in Arabian Nights. This is the time 
when the village is all bustle and life. The 
fields without are deserted by man and beast, 
except for the prowling tiger, the panther and 
the howling jackal; but within the security of 
low mud walls, the tired villagers group them- 
selves in happy gossip, awaiting eagerly the 
evening meal. 

It is the impressionable time of the day, the 
hour which from time immemorial has been 
dedicated to the village pundit, to discourse on 
the beauties of the Ramdyana and MdhdbM- 
rata; and we missionaries have learned not to 



86 Village Work in India 

neglect its opportunity. We cannot reach them 
with the same simple methods employed during 
the day; the ordinary preaching discourse would 
be unavailing in the dark bazaar; so we carry 
them the gospel by means of the Magic Lantern, 
which, with its coloured slides, has now become 
a recognised armament in the missionary cam- 
paign. The villager is fond of anything in the 
nature of a tamdsha; he loves to see the chang- 
ing colours on the sheet; the pictures aid his 
dull sense in understanding the unfamiliar story; 
and he will stand patiently for an hour or more 
in the chill atmosphere of the market-place to 
see and hear the gospel message. Usually, on 
entering a large town or village, we take a few 
photographs of familiar scenes, the bazaar, the 
temple, or a group of schoolboys and preparing 
slides at our tents, throw them upon the screen, 
much to the delight of the amazed villagers, who 
are led thereby to give all the more attention to 
the gospel pictures. These lantern talks are full 
of interest, and the scenes oftentimes indelibly 
impress the story on the childlike village mind. 
I have known an ignorant, jungle Bhil, who, 
after much persuasion had been lured by curi- 
osity to the neighbouring village, and with awe- 
struck features sat in perfect silence drinking in 



Night Work in the Bazaar 87 

the story of some wonderful picture, tell over 
the substance of it again a year later. 

It is marvellous the widespread fascination 
of the lantern meeting; dignified officials, 
who would not deign to pause and listen 
to a bazaar talk, will have their chairs 
brought out and give close attention to the 
explanation of the pictures. I remember one 
evening a number of haughty Brahmins so eager 
to be present at our meeting as to sit down 
under the shelter of the darkness, with low- 
caste Chamdrs and on the latter's verandah ; and 
as I have already said even timid hill men have 
several times been drawn out, through the dark- 
ness, from their jungle homes, to watch the 
magic pictures. Almost the first request, when 
we encamp in a village, is for the lantern, young 
and old crowding round us on our entering the 
bazaar to ask if we are not going to show them 
the pictures. The meeting is usually announced 
not only in the main bazaar but in the neigh- 
bouring villages; and no means has proved as 
successful for gathering large crowds, some- 
times six and eight hundred, even a thousand 
strong, nor as powerful in holding their atten- 
tion and fixing the gospel stories on their mind. 
In all our methods the aim is the same, to give 



88 Village Work in India 

men a vision of Christ; and in the lantern talks 
we touch the Hindu, with his strong love for 
imagery and the picturesque, in his most sus- 
ceptible point. 

Among our afternoon visitors on one occasion 
was the Rao Sahib or Amin ; and as we had 
promised to return his call in the evening, we 
left for our lantern meeting a little early. On the 
way we passed a marriage procession; laughing 
maidens in red, blue and orange saris, singing 
their merry love songs, sober matrons bearing on 
their heads trays of sweetmeats and gaily coloured 
cloths, bashful youths in their ill-fitting finery 
and staid old men. In front walked the groom, 
a weakly-looking man of about twenty-eight 
years, the least attractive individual in the group, 
spite of his gay trappings. But where was the 
bride ? Following the scarf that bound her to 
her future husband, we saw, nestling in her 
mother's arms, all unsuspicious of the cruel and 
binding destinies that were being woven round 
her young life, a wee babe not more than a year 
old; she was the unfortunate bride. And this 
unnatural, and to them eternal union, was being 
forged by the cruel monster custom at the bidding 
of vain superstition, or, it may be, for the grati- 
fication of human passion. It is strange, but to 



Night Work in the Bazaar 89 

our remonstrances the women themselves are the 
most zealous defenders of this appalling custom. 
It would sometimes seem as if the misery of 
Christless womanhood only bred in them a de- 
sire to perpetuate it in those who have to follow; 
the years of her bondage have wrought their own 
permanence. 

The procession was on its way to make an 
offering at a shrine on the neighbouring hilltop, 
for heathenism loves high places and lots of 
noise. The clang of discordant gongs and the 
rumble of the big drums as we passed the temple, 
where the gods were being put to sleep for the 
night, almost deafened us. The Rao Sahib was 
expecting us and chaprdssis with very faded in- 
signia, but colossal importance, shouted offi- 
ciously to the bystanders as they escorted us up to 
the gateway and through a garden sweet with 
the smell of ripening oranges and pomaloes. 
The way led out of the courtyard, across the 
wide verandah of the sombre hachahri, where 
Brahmin clerks drove their reed pens, or sanded 
the finished page, all the more assiduously be- 
cause of the passing sahib log, along a dark mud- 
floored passage, through the cow's stable, up a 
narrow break-neck stairway, impenetrable to a 
ray of light, and into the reception room. Our 



90 Village Work in India 

host had asked his music teacher to come and 
play for us, and very sweet were some of his 
melodies spite of the brass strings of the sitdra. 
He also had tea prepared, but I failed to recog- 
nise the blend. The educated Hindu is exceed- 
ingly courteous, and our friend not only enter- 
tained us with some of his experiences, but ac- 
companied us to the meeting in the bazaar. 

Our men had set up the sheet, by means of its 
heavy teak-wood frame, in the broad street used 
as a market-place, and there was no little cough- 
ing and sneezing as the shuffling feet of the 
gathering throng, which already numbered about 
300, raised the pepper-laden dust. But all soon 
settled down ; it was a clear, cool night, with no 
moon to ''melt" the pictures; the light, though 
we used only an oil lamp was good; and far as 
the reflection carried, eager, bronzed faces focused 
six hundred eyes on the magic-painted canvas; 
even the women thronged the neighbouring ve- 
randahs, anxious not to miss the Padri Sahib's 
tamdsha. 

To the stranger there probably seems no little 
danger in such an exhibition — the distant village, 
far away from the overawing influence of British 
power, the ignorant throng, with religious zeal 
quickly fanned into fanaticism, the darkness 



Night Work in the Bazaar 91 

covering any attempt at mischief, and we with 
our small numbers and delicate apparatus open 
at many points to attack. And yet we carry on 
these evening meetings in the villages of Central 
India, with less of apprehension than would be 
experienced on the streets of our cities at home. 
Probably no class of foreigners can go in and out 
of the villages of India with more impunity than 
the missionary. Though cases are not infre- 
quently reported of British soldiers, and even 
officers, being attacked in the villages, in spite of 
their arms, such an experience is practically un- 
known among missionaries. We enter their 
bazaars at all seasons, either day or night, though 
we know that our audience will probably include 
the village rowdies; we do not hesitate to tell 
them of their faults and point out to them the 
evil of their customs; and we not only do not 
carry arms, but the thought of resistance does not 
even occur to us. What are the reasons for this 
immunity ? In the first place it must be known 
that the religious messenger is treated with as 
much respect, by the better classes in India, as 
he would be under similar polemic circumstances 
at home. Unless it might be under some sudden 
impulse of fanaticism, his person is to them in- 
violate. To be sure our English citizenship must 



g2 Village Work in India 

be credited with some part of this respect, but 
that this cannot fully account for it, is seen by 
the British soldier sometimes being attacked 
where the missionary goes unscathed. I have 
stood before an angry and excited mob for over 
an hour, where, with the nearest British author- 
ity fifty miles away, fear could have moved them 
but little; I could account for being uninjured, 
spite of threats and violent gestures, only by my 
office and its message. Again the missionary un- 
derstands the people and their ways, and speaks 
their language more freely than any other class; 
in all cases of trouble or emergency he is in 
closer touch with them and knows better how to 
handle their fears and passions. In the bread 
riots, during a late famine, it was a missionary 
who went down among the angry mob in one 
of our bazaars and did much to persuade the peo- 
ple from their unlawfulness. Moreover it is the 
missionary's business to be kind and helpful, and 
the people is yet unborn who are altogether in- 
appreciative of kindness. In famine or sickness, 
in all kinds of distress, all classes of people nat- 
urally seek the missionary. Even the native 
grooms of the cavalry and artillery regiments 
in cantonment distinguish among the soldiers 
those who are kind to them, and significantly 



Night Work in the Bazaar 93 

call them padri-sahib (missionary) soldiers. In 
the bazaar no one is more respected or wields 
more moral influence than the missionary, and 
even among those who profess no interest in his 
message, he numbers many friends. 

Certainly baptisms are resented, especially by 
the caste of the one received; but the resentment 
is more against the convert than the preacher. 
We are perfectly open about our purpose; and 
many, especially where their own family is not 
affected, are willing to admit liberty of con- 
science. Many also recognise that the inevitable 
destiny of India is to become Christianised. And 
even when, under some sudden excitement, the 
inflammable fanaticism of the masses bursts into 
a fury of ignorant hatred, the great majority still 
remain true to their respect for the missionary. 
Dissociated in the native mind from political ag- 
gression, and conducted in the long-suffering 
spirit of Christ, the missionary propaganda 
among the great nations of the East has little to 
fear of personal violence. 

There was no evidence of either hatred or op- 
position in our village audience on this occasion. 
They were not only an interested but a happy 
crowd. The greater part of the village was out; 
shopkeeper rubbed against farm-labourer, Brah- 



94 Village Work in India 

min against Chamdr, in the abandon of a new 
tamdsha, and under the shadow of uncommuni- 
cative night. Some had climbed into empty bul- 
lock carts by the side of the roadway, crowing 
like schoolboys at their elevated position; others 
had a coign of vantage both for seeing and hear- 
ing in the raised verandahs of the shop fronts. 
Among the latter were not a few women, many 
of whose faces also peeped out eagerly from the 
neighbouring doorways, some even venturing to 
the outskirts of the crowd, their shrill though 
subdued comments mingling occasionally with 
the remarks of the boys. These last were much 
in evidence, for nolens volens we must give them 
a front seat; so they had been arranged in rows, 
oil-seller's son, bunya boys, farmers and even a 
bolder Chamdr, all squatting close together in 
the dusty roadway, as oblivious to the presence 
of any one else as though the exhibition were all 
their own; and perfectly happy, spite of an oc- 
casional cut from the end of a bamboo, when 
their comments on the pictures or their gibes at 
one another grew too vociferous. Boys are boys 
the world over, and we seldom get through an 
evening's meeting without a stick or two being 
forfeited, which were serving as means of tor- 
ture to all within reach, or some specially mis- 



Night Work in the Bazaar 95 

chievous lad being led off ignominiously by the 
ear. 

Though we have been conducting these lantern 
meetings for many years, we have seldom had a 
hitch. Sometimes the oil has been poor, but we 
provide for this by carrying a drum of the best 
kerosene with us. Several times the frame, 
though strong and heavy, has been broken in 
the long journeys over the rough jungle roads, 
but the branch of a tree or the corners of two 
projecting roof-tops are easily brought into req- 
uisition. On one occasion the slide carrier was 
left behind, but the light cane of one of the 
workers, split and bound by two transverse 
pieces and twine into a rude square, formed a 
sufficient substitute to carry us through the meet- 
ing. Touring, however, has become so much of 
an art, the magic-lantern apparatus all being in its 
own case, that there is little room for anything 
going astray. Moreover it is easily handled; the 
whole can be set up while the crowd is gathering 
and removed ere it is dispersed. 

Difficulties arise from without also. One even- 
ing when we had set up our sheet in a narrow 
roadway, the only thoroughfare in the village, 
we were obliged to stop in the midst of our 
meeting, remove the sheet and lantern, and allow 



96 Village Work in India 

a belated herd of cattle to go by. Sometimes 
where the caste feeling runs high, we have diffi- 
culty in the selection of a place of meeting, and 
generally have to compromise by going into the 
main bazaar one evening, and among the low- 
caste people another. Occasionally the attrac- 
tions of a wedding feast are too strong to be 
counteracted by our pictures; then we have to 
divide the interest as well as the roadway with 
the shrieks of cracked trumpets and the bellow- 
ings of noisy tomtoms, without which no mar- 
riage could be orthodox in India. Seldom, how- 
ever, have we had a serious interruption and 
never has it been my experience to have the 
lantern meeting broken up. 

The night was still and cool, and I felt glad of 
my long ulster to wrap around me when I was 
not speaking; but it did not seem to affect the 
crowd, though their bare limbs and thinly clad 
shoulders, boasting, most of them, nothing more 
than a single cotton shirt, must have been stiff 
with cold. The interest was intense; a pro- 
gramme had been arranged and each speaker 
knew exactly when his turn would come. After 
a few scenes from their own and neighbouring 
villages, and some views of Canada, we had a 
hymn thrown on the sheet, and then began the 



Night Work in the Bazaar 97 

addresses; first the parables of **The rich fool" 
and "The rich man and Lazarus," so pungently 
applicable to life in India; then the story of 
''The tares," "The hid treasure," and "The 
lost sheep," closing with the old story that never 
grows old, and is the same in all languages and 
in every land, "The prodigal son." It would 
require a powerful cinematograph to depict the 
changing expression on the rude village faces as 
for the first time these divine masterpieces came 
across their spiritual vision, and the lessons ran 
athwart their experience. They stood many of 
them as if entranced, while picture after picture 
was flashed before their eyes, only an occasional 
*' shdbdsh" (well done) or "sack hat" (it is 
true), betraying the feelings that were stirring 
within their hearts. 

I have no apology to make for this method of 
evangelisation. Some may object, some scoff at 
such an instrumentality. I can only say that in 
no work of my life have I felt more uplifted, 
more satisfied that God's benediction was upon 
me than in these stirring evening meetings in the 
villages — the sustained interest, the freedom from 
interruption, the spell that seems to hold our 
hearers even after the service is over, the 
deep, heart-felt "Salaam!" with which they 



98 Village Work in India 

bid us farewell, all speak of the Spirit's 
power. 

At the close of our meeting we were in some 
difficulty as to how to get our apparatus back to 
camp. Usually we have our own bullock cart, 
but it had gone to Mhow during the afternoon 
for provisions, and the villagers were very loth 
to go out after dark. While we were pursuing 
our enquiries, and as usual, even in the little 
things, looking up higher for aid, a man came 
forward with smiling countenance, and asked if 
we did not remember him. He was a bullock 
driver who had one day got into trouble, many 
miles away on the streets of Mhow, and I had 
been able to help him. He gladly volunteered 
to go for his cart, and, spite of the trouble, the 
lateness and the dark, carried our things safely 
back to camp. 

As we neared the grove where our tents were 
pitched we could hear solemn and persuasive 
tones as of one preaching, and we caught a 
glimpse of an interested group round the camp- 
fire. It was the cook, who, having dinner 
ready, had gathered about him the village chow- 
kiddrs, and was relating to them his own experi- 
ences and the wonderful merits of the gospel; 
nor did his earnestness make our simple meal 



Night Work in the Bazaar 99 

one whit the less tasty. It was not an unfitting 
picture to close an evening with some of God's 
masterpieces; for *'How beautiful upon the 
mountains are the feet of him that bringeth 
good tidings, that publisheth peace." 



L.cfO. 



CHAPTER VII 

AGAINST GREAT ODDS 

It is market day and the bazaar is crowded, for 
the countryside has taken a holiday and come to 
town. They come by couples, they come by 
families, they come by villages; to see and to be 
seen, to buy or to sell, to pay their rents to the 
Thakur or make some complaint against their 
neighbours. The little, box-like shops on either 
side of the market-place, with their low, tiled 
roofs and stone sills abutting out over the ill- 
smelling drain, are surrounded with eager pur- 
chasers; out in the roadway, in two long 
straggling lines, a little in front of the shops, the 
vegetable women have spread their baskets of 
onions and red peppers, greens and cucumbers; 
here and there a trinket-seller displays his wares 
on a faded cloth to catch the eye of the jewellery- 
loving Hindu and the dust; in the most favoured 
sites the cloth and brass merchants have erected 
their booths, from which they bargain good- 
naturedly with the crowd; in a quiet corner the 
shoemaker plies his despised but necessary trade, 

lOO 



Against Great Odds loi 

while down a side street, away from ofifence 
to Brahmin susceptibilities, the Mohammedan 
butcher barters goat's flesh to his co-religionists. 

Crowds of women in red and blue saris, with 
market baskets on their heads, stand gossiping 
and bargaining with the shopkeepers; clustered 
round a bunya's stall are the poor villagers who 
have walked ten miles to get an extra yard of 
cloth for their rupee; how touchingly human to 
see a man and his wife, meagrely clad both of 
them, fingering some coveted piece of goods, 
while they haggle with the bunya for a further 
reduction, if it be only a pice; standing in gos- 
siping groups discussing crops and the probabil- 
ities for the rains, are the more substantial 
farmers and tradesmen, who boast perhaps an 
old pony to ride; there struts the dude with his 
pink coat and pale green turban ; these supercili- 
ous individuals with broad Marathi turbans and 
clean well-fed faces, are the government officials; 
conspicuous also are the Mohammedan pedlar, 
the policeman, the soldier, the priest and the 
pundit; and last of all there are your better 
known friends the missionary and one or two of 
his native helpers, for we are present also on 
market days. 

We come neither to see nor be seen, neither 



102 Village Work in India 

to buy nor sell, unless it may be tracts. Ours is 
more than a passing interest; these multitudes 
are human souls, struggling with the great 
problem of human destiny, and we have come to 
give them the ''bread of life." We choose a 
shady spot, beneath a tree or in the shelter of 
some proffered shop front, for even the Hindu 
likes to get out of this ever-broiling sun, and an- 
nounce our presence by singing one of those 
beautiful Hindi lyrics which have translated the 
gospel story into the melody of the people, ac- 
companying it, as the case may be, with con- 
certina or baby organ. The crowd soon gathers, 
for the Hindus have one characteristic that may 
yet prove their salvation, they are very curious. 
The hymn over, one of us will begin to speak, 
probably explaining the meaning of the words 
we have sung, and showing through their inter- 
pretation, who we are, the great Master whom 
we serve, and His message which we have come 
to deliver. 

In standing before an Indian audience, the mis- 
sionary's first difficulty is with the language. It 
is not a mere matter of grammar, though the 
Hindu lives largely in the subjunctive mood; nor 
yet of vocabulary, though the villager thinks and 
talks in metaphors. For instance he does not 



Against Great Odds 103 

speak of "going for a walk," but of "eating the 
air," nor of "repentance" but of "catching his 
ear," and "haste " is expressed by such a phrase 
as " breaking bread in one place and taking drink 
in another." Even when words and phrases 
have been learned, their content to the European 
is often very different from the meaning they 
convey to the Hindu. Such terms as "God," 
"sin," "righteousness," "holiness," etc, have 
an entirely different significance to the missionary 
from his hearers, and in using them their new 
content must be made plain. Again such com- 
mon Christian conceptions as "justification," 
" sanctification " and even "conscience" have no 
parallels in the Hindu mind. 

Closely connected with the use of these 
terms is the difficulty of understanding the 
Hindu's view-point. His conception of God and 
man's relationship to Him, of sin and man's re- 
sponsibility, and of human destiny are so dif- 
ferent, that to speak without entering into these, 
and explaining his meaning, the preacher might 
often be talking to the wind. 

Even with these difficulties conquered, it is not 
easy to hold a Hindu audience, for it is very 
fickle and curiosity soon tires. One must follow 
its vagaries, understand its temper, be quick to 



104 Village Work in India 

discern lack of interest and none tlie less ready to 
check it. Christianity is to the Hindu a new 
idea, it is out of his ken, so to speak; it presents 
phases of thought that have never entered his 
mind before; it is no message of the gods he is 
accustomed to, it deals with neither food, cloth- 
ing nor pice, why should he hear it ? Nor can 
one be satisfied with mere attention; when 
preaching, I have seen a man stand with eyes 
glued on my face, seemingly drinking in the 
words with both eyes and ears, and at the most 
interesting part of the discourse, turn to his 
neighbour and remark "the padri sahib must be 
very young, he has no mustache." Christianity 
has a hard battle to fight for it meets with oppo- 
sition at almost every point of contact, and is 
opposed to the very genius of the Hindu; it 
assails his reHgion, his daily life, his national 
customs and the teachings of his forefathers, its 
only redeeming feature being that it is kind and, 
unlike Mohammedanism, does nothing by force. 
Behind all these difficulties is the ever-present 
foe of indifference. Non-Christians are far from 
the eager, truth-devouring beings of childhood's 
memories; most of them are perfectly indifferent 
to the Word of Life we bring them, or interested 
only in so far as it satisfies their curiosity or af- 



Against Great Odds 105 

fords them entertainment for an idle hour. 
There is a saying among the villagers : 

** Sanche koi na mane ; jhuthejag patiyae ; 
Gali gali goras phire, madird baith bikae." 

(Man heeds not truth, but lists to lies; 

Alas ! such is man's will. 
He tramps the streets who milk supplies ; 

"While liquor men sit still.) 

Some Spicy or questionable tale, some piece of idle 
gossip or lewd song is more to their taste. Time 
and again, as we stand in the market-place pro- 
claiming Christ's free salvation for all, only the 
few gather to the gospel sound, while all around 
us men are chattering about money, clothes, 
fields or their neighbours, — this is the most subtle 
and depressing of all our opponents. 

Even less trying than indifference is open op- 
position; sometimes we rather welcome it, for if 
from an honest heart it sets people thinking. It 
is of various kinds and seldom physical. One 
evening on the streets of the city we were at- 
tacked with stones by a Mohammedan mob who 
had been worsted in an argument; and occasion- 
ally, if we prolong our talks till after dark, we 
will be pelted with sand and mud, but this is 
generally the sport of boys. More frequently the 
wags of a village interrupt the preaching to show 



io6 Village Work in India 

off or raise a laugh. They do nothing serious, 
only ask ridiculous questions or poke fun at the 
speakers. In such cases one must never become 
disconcerted or lose his temper; if you under- 
stand your audience and are quick-witted, you 
will soon turn the laugh or overawe the dis- 
turber. More than once have I seen some worth- 
less braggart, who was making sport of holy 
things, completely subdued by a solemn rebuke 
or an appeal to the reverent feelings of the 
crowd. Of course we give even the most worth- 
less opponent a chance; we will answer ques- 
tions either at the close of the address or at the 
tents, and we always have a standing invitation 
to meet any one, either at his own or our place 
of appointment to discuss religious differences. 
But if, as frequently happens, it be some flippant 
youth desiring to be wise or funny before the 
crowd, the surest way of stopping his annoy- 
ance is to turn on him his own laugh. To a 
Western audience the arguments that find favour 
in an Indian bazaar, and no less the devices used 
to silence or reply, would appear childish. The 
average Oriental with all his subtlety is no 
reasoner, real argument he is either unable or un- 
willing to understand, and real discussion with a 
man who was insincere would mean dissipating 



Against Great Odds 107 

your audience and losing an opportunity. But 
when he does not heed your polite request to 
wait till the address is over, when he will not be 
quieted but persists in his interruption, his ques- 
tion must be answered though it requires more 
of wit than brains to do it. 

On one occasion, in the middle of a gospel 
talk, a man had persisted in the unprofitable but 
not uncommon question, ''Where did sin come 
from ? " At last, turning on him, I said, "What's 
that ? " " Where did sin come from, what is the 
origin of sin?" he repeated, looking round the 
audience with a self-satisfied leer, as if to say 
" Now I've given the Padri Sahib a poser." I did 
not attempt to answer; I knew the objection to 
be a stock question, and that he had his reply 
ready whatever I might have answered; but, 
turning to the crowd, I said: "A certain man's 
house was on fire. Apparently unconscious of 
his danger, the householder was lying asleep in- 
side. At no little risk to their lives his friends 
rushed in to drag him out, calling on him to save 
himself. What was their surprise to hear him 
reply, * I have no desire to be saved, I will not 
leave my bed till I find out the origin of the fire.' 
What think you of such a man ? " ** Why he's a 
fool," answered several people at once. "Well 



io8 Village Work in India 

then," I replied, pointing to the interrupter, 
" what do you think of this man ? We are in a 
world of sin, men all round us are dying of sin. 
But when I come to warn you and tell you of a 
way of escape, this man, instead of heeding the 
message or permitting others to heed, says he 
wants to know nothing of the escape from sin 
till he has first found out its origin. " But the inter- 
rupter did not wait for their opinion, and I had 
the undivided attention of my audience while I 
continued to tell them of "the escape from 
sin. 

On another occasion a priest was defending 
idolatry by the usual pantheistic contention that 
all things were divine, therefore the image. I 
could not but feel that, with his intelligence, 
there was more of mercenary motive than faith 
in his profession, as I glanced over at the almost 
shapeless mass under the neighbouring archway, 
smeared with red paint and grease, and sur- 
rounded with broken cocoanut shells and the 
scraps left by the village dogs. Picking up a 
stone from the roadside, I asked him: 

"Is this divine?" 

"Yes," he replied, hesitatingly, not quite see- 
ing whither I was leading him. 

"And the rupee," (which I had requested him 



Against Great Odds 109 

to produce from a fold in his turban) 'Ms that 
also divine?" 

"Oh, yes," he answered, not quite so reluc- 
tantly. 

''Which," said I, " contains the more divinity, 
the stone or the silver rupee ?" 

" Oh, the stone, it is the larger." 

"Well, then," I replied, "let us trade." 

But he did not. 

The rougher element among the Moham- 
medans is even more difficult to control and more 
unscrupulous and vulgar in its style of objection 
than among the Hindus. Where ''t is mere 
rowdyism, throwing mud or baiting the speakers 
with offensive remarks, one must just be patient; 
and if forbearing, can generally count on the 
sympathies of the crowd. In other cases one 
must depend on diplomacy. One evening our 
men were preaching in the bazaar of a town near 
the Nerbudda. One after another, the speakers 
had been interrupted by the irrelevant questions 
and unsavory remarks of a loud voiced Moham- 
medan on the outskirts of the crowd. Every re- 
quest to desist, even the attempts of those in the 
audience near him, proved of no avail to quiet 
his disturbance. In the middle of an address by 
an old catechist, one of those animals so com- 



110 Village Work in India 

monly found wandering about an Indian bazaar, 
with small body, big head and prodigiously large 
ears, poked his nose into the outer circle and 
sang out a vigorous " Hee! Haw! " The speaker 
stopped, and, pausing a moment, cast his eye 
round the crowd and enquired, ''Where's that 
talking machine? We won't keep him any 
longer, as his brother's come to call for him." 

As it is our custom never to engage in discus- 
sion in the bazaar, where it would only engender 
unseemly strife, we frequently have to stand by 
our offer and meet men, either at our tents or at 
some appointed building. We have had many 
such encounters with fanatical moulvies, subtle 
Brahmin priests and ash-clad fakirs. I was called 
to the schoolhouse one evening by a sudden 
message that a moulvie and a crowd of followers 
had come to discuss religion with me. On 
hurrying down, I found a rather motley crowd 
gathered, representing all classes of Mohammedan 
society, cooks, shopkeepers, teachers and gov- 
ernment officials. The moulvie was a rather 
effeminate looking man, dressed in a long, some- 
what dirty white hurta (tunic) and paijdmas. 
He was a stranger to Mhow, evidently a Pathan, 
as was betrayed by both features and dialect, but 
especially by his shaggy, fair-skinned attendants. 



Against Great Odds iii 

He had come to Mhow to stir up his co-religion- 
ists; it is said he came among them like a veri- 
table John the Baptist, awakening them from their 
easy-going religious indifference, searching out 
every breach of Mohammedan law, and visiting 
it with all possible punishment. His zeal finally 
overstepped the patience of the authorities and 
he was obliged to leave the cantonment. 

On his entering the schoolroom, all conversa- 
tion ceased and every man rose to his feet. 
Without waiting for arrangements, but like one in 
authority, he immediately took the meeting into 
his own hand and poured out a volle> of objec- 
tions to some of the doctrines of Christianity, 
more particularly the divinity of Christ. He 
asked question after question without waiting 
for reply. Like one of those mountain torrents 
on his native hillsides, he dashed impetuously on 
and there was no stopping him. He talked not 
so much to me as to his own, his voice rising in 
pitch and increasing in intensity as the speech 
flowed on. Nor was it without considerable 
effect even on these half-tamed Mohammedans 
of the plains; every eye was fixed, every nerve 
seemed tense and strung. What a terrible thing 
must such fanaticism be among the wild hill 
tribes of the frontier and on the lips of a ''Mad 



112 Village Work in India 

Mullah"! When he stopped for breath, I was 
able to interject a proposal that he should submit 
his questions one at a time. The resulting de- 
bate, however, was not quite as picturesque as 
the moulvie's address. His evident intention was 
not so much to get at the truth as to make an 
impression on his followers; to him, as to most 
Mohammedans, discussion was a sort of passion; 
he argued for argument's sake and his great aim 
was to gain his point. His methods may be 
judged from the fact that during the debate he 
had no difficulty even in denying the Quran for 
the sake of argument. The only advantage from 
the discussion was that when all the questions 
had been asked, I was given an opportunity to 
speak at length and present the claims of the 
gospel, and to an audience that I had seldom be- 
fore had the privilege of reaching. 

The moulvie and I met on several occasions, 
one of them being an address I gave, at his own 
request, on the claims of Christ. I found them 
not unsusceptible, especially to the arguments 
from their own Quran, as, gathering out its 
broken fragments of the divine message, I pieced 
them together round Jesus. 

I have said nothing about the opposition of 
the priesthood, the unfriendliness of the native 



Against Great Odds 1 13 

governments and other forces which go to 
swell the ranks opposed to the advance of 
the gospel; these will be manifest from incidents 
related elsewhere. But behind these unveiled 
opponents there lie more deeply rooted still the 
blighting curse of idolatry, the terrible despotism 
of caste and custom and the subtle anaesthetic of 
a pantheistic philosophy. The Hindu is clothed in 
an armour in which no link seems incomplete; 
socially, intellectually and religiously, he has an 
answer ready at every point of attack. And yet 
his heart is not impenetrable; glossed over with 
superstition, bound down by conservatism, per- 
verted by the false teaching of ages, and stupefied 
by an equally false philosophy, great aspirations 
and great possibilities lie sleeping there. We do 
not feel these in the big bazaar; but in the little 
talks by the roadside, in front of the village 
temple, or sitting cross-legged in the shade of 
some friendly verandah, we see the veil lifted 
from the rude villager's heart, and hold converse 
with his inner soul. The fight is severe and the 
odds against us great, but looming up through 
the awakening life in these village hearts we see 
the broken ramparts of the superstitions of the 
past, and over all floating the banner of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 



VIII 

BARWAI : AN OUTSTATION 

*' Who was the father of Jesus ? " 

The speaker, needless to say, was a Moham- 
medan; for this is one of their stock questions, 
and a common interruption to the telling of the 
Gospel story. He formed one of a group of vil- 
lagers gathered beneath a rude cattle-shed, some 
seated on the rough-hewn logs, stored there out 
of the sun and rain by a neighbouring bunya, 
some standing and some squatted on the scat- 
tered straw. We had been driven into this shelter 
from our stand beneath the imlt-tvee across the 
way, by the pouring rain; and old Raghu, who 
was preaching, had been telling the story of that 
other cattle-shed in far off Bethlehem, when the 
stone-mason interrupted him. 

"Brother," I interposed, ''what was the 
Prophet's purpose in establishing his religion, 
was it not to put down idolatry ? " 

"True, oh Padri Sahib," answered the man, 
squaring himself for an argument, "that was the 
purpose of the Prophet, blessed be his name! " 

114 



Barwai : An Outstation 115 

"How long hast thou been in this village ?" 

''About ten years." 

**Hast thou ever preached against idolatry or 
tried to lead the people from their sin ? " 

"No, Padri Sahib," he replied, hesitatingly, as 
if puzzled to see the drift of the argument. 

"Well," I said, "thou hast done nothing to 
put down idolatry thyself and immediately we 
Christians come to turn the people from their 
sins, instead of helping thou dost oppose us. Is 
that right, oh brother ? " 

The stone-mason was honest enough to con- 
fess himself in the wrong; and when, a few mo- 
ments later, we closed our meeting and began to 
sell tracts, he was the first purchaser. 

It was a day in the beginning of the rains of 
'92, the roads were heavy with mud and the air 
in the bazaar reeking with the fetid smells of 
rotting rubbish. Raghu and I had come down 
to Barwai, a town in the Nerbudda valley about 
thirty-six miles from Mhow, prospecting with a 
view to establishing an outstation. I had long 
been impressed, in fact since our first district 
tour, with the need of some new method to fol- 
low up the preaching and deal with enquirers. 
In our discursive journeys we could preach the 
gospel, but we could not deepen impressions and 



li6 Village Work in India 

bring men to open confession. Better work 
could be done if Christian teachers were settled 
in the various centres, where the spirit's influence 
had been most manifest, with opportunity of 
meeting people from the different villages every 
two or three weeks, instead of once a year, and 
of dealing more personally with enquirers. Such 
places would become centres of Christian life 
and influence, affording all within their reach an 
object lesson in Christian character and service, 
an opportunity of regular meetings and especially 
of hearing the gospel at their own doors from 
week to week. 

Raghu and I spent the day amidst the smells of 
the bazaar, holding meetings and interviewing 
some of the townspeople about our proposal. 
Barwai was a most suitable place for an out- 
station, being the chief town of a district, a large 
market-place, the seat of an Amin and his court, 
and within easy reach of some seventy or eighty 
villages. 

As a result of our visit two of the Native 
preachers came down a few days later to remain 
a week or two and open the work. On arriving, 
they rented a small house on the bazaar road, at 
a quiet corner of the village and far removed 
from the temples. But no sooner had they 



Barwai : An Outstation 117 

begun to preach on the streets than a hue and 
cry was raised by the Brahmins, and the landlord 
persuaded to drive them out; nor were they able 
to procure another lodging. Nothing was left 
them therefore, but to seek shelter in the sarai 
or native rest-house, an open tile-roofed shed, 
and in this case not very clean, the resort of 
every kind of traveller, including beggar and 
fakir. It was discouraging, for, apart from the 
discomfort, it gave them no place to store their 
effects, and no suitable accommodation for cook- 
ing their food; but our men, thankful for even 
this poor shelter, set themselves with true Chris- 
tian fortitude to make the best of it. By paying 
a lad a few pice daily they were able to have 
their effects guarded while they went about their 
work and at night they cooked their food on the 
roadside with the crowd. Every evening they 
held a service among the travellers at the rest- 
house. At the first meeting they were attracted 
by a young Brahmin, whose attention to the 
preaching proclaimed him as specially interested; 
and when at bedtime, during the singing of their 
evening hymn, he drew near to listen, they 
called him over and spoke to him. He was a 
Maratha youth of about twenty years of age, as- 
sistant to a merchant, whom he was accompany- 



1 1 8 Village Work in India 

ing on a journey to Maheshwar. It appeared that 
he had long been a seeker, but had as yet heard 
little concerning Christ or His message. 

He became almost at once an enquirer and 
when, at the end of the week, I visited Barwai I 
was surprised to see his earnestness and sim- 
plicity. Satisfied that the root of the matter was 
in him I commended him to the Christians for 
further instruction, as long as he should remain 
with them at the rest-house. Meanwhile our 
men busied themselves visiting the mahallas, or 
districts of the town, and surrounding villages, 
and becoming acquainted with their field. They 
also took every opportunity to pursue enquiries 
for a house in which to live, but till almost the 
last moment with no result. At the end of an- 
other week they returned to Mhow to report on 
their field and make full arrangements for per- 
manent occupancy, for at last they had got word 
of accommodation. What was my surprise to 
see accompanying them the young Brahmin en- 
quirer. It appeared that when his master was 
leaving Barwai to go into the interior, the servant 
wanted to give up his position and remain with 
the Christians. As soon, however, as the bunya 
knew the reason for his request he became very 
angry, and though he had no legal claim on him. 



Barwai : An Outstation 1 19 

absolutely refused to let him off. One day in 
the midst of pouring rain they started, the young 
man bidding our Christians "good-bye" with a 
heavy heart. 

** But I didn't seem to be going the right road," 
he told me in relating the story; " every step of 
the way my feet kept dragging me backwards, 
and the road grew heavier and heavier. At last 
when we had gone about fourteen miles, I could 
stand it no longer; I left everything I had in the 
cart, and, turning round, fled as fast as my feet 
could carry me back to Barwai." 

He had had nothing to eat all day, the master's 
anger venting itself in a process of starvation; 
the roads were heavy and muddy with rain; 
it was late at night and all his possessions 
were behind him ; and yet, nothing daunted, he 
fled back to the story of two passing strangers. 
"Yes, I was afraid," he replied, in answer to a 
question, "but though I was very thirsty, I was 
still more afraid to stop at a village for a drink, 
for fear they would detain me." 

About midnight our men were awakened in 
the sarai by some one calling them, and awoke 
to find the poor Brahmin wet, hungry and now 
shivering, after his long journey. As he had left 
everything behind and was so miserable, our 



120 Village Work in India 

men wished immediately to give him something 
to eat. They did not ask him to take their food, 
as that would have required his breaking caste, 
but offered him pice to go to the bazaar and buy 
for himself. The young man, however, hesi- 
tated; he had already taken a long step towards 
Christianity, and he began to say to himself, with 
a true Hindu conception of the immediate result 
of a change of faith, "If I am going to become a 
Christian I must eat with Christians." It was a 
hard struggle, for he was a Brahmin; the prej- 
udices of countless generations were against it, 
and every fibre of his nature must have revolted 
at the thought of taking food from strange 
hands; but while he waited silent prayers were 
ascending beside him for help. 

"\ will cat your food," he finally said; and 
there and then he abandoned caste and Hindu- 
ism. 

Perhaps the first step was the hardest. The 
young man became an earnest student of the 
Word, for he could read, and was soon after 
baptised. His testimony before baptism was 
very interesting. I had shown him the dangers 
he would encounter in becoming a Christian, 
the loss of caste, friends and associations, and 
the subsequent hardships he would have to en- 



Barwai : An Outstation 121 

dure, and not least in the matter of earning his 
bread as a Christian. 

''Padri Sahib," he replied, "the grain must 
first be pounded in the mortar before it is fit to be 
made into bread; I am willing to suffer if it is to 
make me a better Christian." On the day of 
baptism, removing his Brahmin thread before the 
assembled congregation, he gave it to me, for he 
was done with it forever. 

Thus was begun our work in Barwai. After 
many enquiries and disappointments, our men 
had got track of a house belonging to a merchant 
friend in Mhow; a bargain was struck, and be- 
fore another week was past, the two men were 
settled in their new home and our first out- 
station opened. We had many experiences; the 
Borahs or Mohammedan merchants asked for a 
school, even sending me a numerously signed 
petition, and then backed out of it on account of 
the Bible teaching. Then the poor people, who 
were not permitted to attend the native govern- 
ment school in the bazaar, preferred a similar re- 
quest, but were frightened out of it by the 
Brahmins. 

Meanwhile our men gave most of their time to 
preaching in the bazaars and surrounding villages, 
where, with but few exceptions, their gospel 



122 Village Work in India 

message was well received. Among the ex- 
ceptions, however, was a small village a mile or 
so from Barwai, in which, though Raghu had 
received a fair hearing the first time he went, the 
Brahmin priest had so influenced the villagers, 
that soon none of them seemed willing to listen. 
But Raghu was not so easily beaten ; taking his 
siidra he played and sang the bhajans (hymns) 
from door to door. One day he was accosted by 
a dholi or drum player, whose sympathetic 
attention he had several times particularly con- 
trasted with the indifference of the rest of the 
village. ''Salaam! Father," said the stranger, 
"I have several times wished to speak to thee." 
And sitting down on a stone by the roadside, the 
preacher heard his story: — It turned out that 
some months before, when returning from a 
journey to the North, he had purchased a tract 
from one of the colporteurs on the station plat- 
form at Neemuch, whose contents he had studied 
carefully; and ever since he had been eager to 
hear more about the religion of Jesus. He had 
several times wished to speak to Raghu, but 
feared the priest; however the catechist's per- 
severance had conquered. The first meeting led 
to many others; and the drum-player became a 
constant visitor at the mission in Barwai. As he 



Barwai: An Outs tat ion 123 

was educated, he spent much of his time in 
reading Christian books; and it was one of these, 
"The Enquiry Into the True Religion," a com- 
parison of Christianity with the religions of 
India, that seemed finally to clinch his doubts 
and hopes and determine him to come out for 
Christ. 

I usually visited Barwai and the other out- 
stations once a month to hold service and Bible- 
class with the Christians and enquirers. Here 
for the first time I met the dholi. He was a man 
of middle age, tall, thin, and dressed in the 
ordinary costume of the well-to-do villager, 
cotton shirt, loin-cloth and red turban. He was 
not a communicative man, but the set features 
of his spare face, which were surrounded with a 
thin, scraggy beard, showed both thought and 
determination; and though not very eager to 
question, he listened attentively to every expla- 
nation of the Christ Way. I did not urge him to 
be baptised; I knew that some day, without any 
demonstration, and in the privacy of his own 
heart, he would come to a decision. I was not 
surprised, therefore, when a week or two later 
he made a journey to Mhow and asked for 
baptism. It was hard to refuse, and he seemed 
deeply grieved when I asked him to wait a little 



124 Village Work in India 

while; but again without any demonstration, he 
went back to his village and to work. It is one 
of the most difficult questions the missionary is 
called on to determine, that of readiness for 
baptism; the seal of the kingdom and sonship, 
especially in these new lands, must be kept un- 
sullied; and yet too much care cannot be 
exercised lest he should offend "one of these 
little ones." In a few weeks the dholi was back 
again with the same request; so, after further 
conversation and prayer, and on the unanimous 
advice of the native brethren, it was decided he 
should be baptised. He had again to wait, how- 
ever, as I was too ill for the service; but these 
trials gave me more confidence in his position, as 
I knew that besides his expenses he was at con- 
siderable loss by neglecting his work. It was a 
solemn service and a landmark in the history of 
the work in Barwai, when we received him into 
the Church of Christ. 

Few of us perhaps realise all that it means to 
the conservative prejudices of a Hindu home 
when one of its members, and especially the 
father and head of the house, cuts his religious 
moorings, and, like a ship putting out into an 
unknown sea, breaks away from caste and the 
associations of Hinduism for the society of a 



Barwai : An Outstation 1 25 

strange people. To the Hindu every relationship 
in life is religious, and a change therefore of his 
religious connections is not a mere break in the 
even tenor of the past; it is a revolution, a 
catastrophe, a sudden destruction of all the 
sacred and social bonds that make up life, both 
here and hereafter. On the women especially, 
to whom in their social seclusion and religious 
ignorance the importance of these bonds is 
intensely magnified, the blow falls with a 
severity often more terrible than death. Many 
a Hindu mother has dashed her head against the 
stones on the news of the perversion of her son 
from the ancient faith. Truly to many the gospel 
brings not peace but a sword. 

It will be understood also how readily this 
sense of disappointment is changed into a nar- 
row spirit of revenge. The poor dholi was not 
only shunned by the villagers but abhorred and 
despised by his wife. She revolted from his 
change of faith as something recklessly sinful. 
He might believe what he would, but to break 
caste and connect himself with an alien religion 
was not only wrong, it was imbecile. She re- 
fused to cook for him or allow him to eat in the 
same part of the house as the family, she lashed 
him bitterly with her reproaches, and did every- 



126 Village Work in India 

thing to make his life miserable. He not only 
bore all bravely, but openly testified to his faith 
in Christ, and, as he went about from village to 
village in pursuit of his calling, quietly taught the 
Gospel story. He was a man of considerable 
influence among his caste people, and gradually 
they have all become permeated with the Christ 
message, many have become definitely interested, 
and several have been led to confess Christ in 
baptism, from among whom has come one of 
the brightest of our young preachers. Thus the 
very unity and corporate spirit which are the 
strength of the caste system, cooperate at times 
in the furtherance of the gospel. Though neither 
the character nor the history of Christianity leads 
us to expect cataclysmic or sectional additions to 
its ranks, yet when the first converts are caste 
leaders, as happened with these dholis, the gos- 
pel is given a mighty lever for its propagation. 

For some time, while we had a medical mis- 
sionary in Mhow, a dispensary was opened in 
Barwai under the charge of an English lady- 
missionary, who did much valuable service 
especially among the women and children. 
Spite of this combination of Christianising forces 
however, many of the Brahmin officials remained 
unfriendly. There was great rejoicing when the 



Barwai : An Outstation 127 

house in which our Christian helpers were living 
was burned down. "This," said they, "will 
drive the Christians out, for they will not be able 
to get another house." Quietly I entered into 
negotiations for the purchase of a piece of land 
and the building of a house. No objection was 
made at the time to my purchase, which, accord- 
ing to the custom of the state, I registered in the 
Amin's court, receiving a stamped receipt for the 
deed, and in a few days the foundations were 
begun. At the end of the month required for 
registration, however, I was told that the Holkar 
authorities had refused to sanction the sale ; and 
though I had many interviews with the Prime 
Minister I could get no other reply than that the 
Maharaja had determined not to allow Europeans 
to obtain land within his state. My rights as a 
British subject, the payment of the money in the 
presence of an official, and the registration of the 
deed in the Amin's court would, I was led to 
believe, have procured a settlement in the Mis- 
sion's favour by an appeal to the British authori- 
ties. This we have persistently refused to do; 
while I have ever found the British authorities in 
India most sympathetic towards our work, an 
appeal to them is of the nature of secular force; 
and the cause of Christ and His gospel of peace 



128 Village Work in India 

is not to be furthered by such a means. We 
have been waiting five years for that piece of 
land and we can afford to wait ; in God's time 
we will get it. 

With such sentiments on the part of those in 
authority, it was not likely the Christians in the 
district would escape persecution. One young 
man was imprisoned in Barwai on some 
trumped-up charge; and, because he confessed 
himself a Christian, was most cruelly ill-used by 
the native police. They tied him with cords in 
such a way as to make every movement one of 
pain, and then compelled him to try and walk 
for their sport. The officials refused even to see 
one of our missionaries, when he called to ask 
the nature of the charge and the reason of the 
cruel treatment. Again I appealed to the Prime 
Minister of the Maharaja, asking simply that 
justice be done and the man granted a fair trial. 
This time I was not only most cordially received, 
though the Minister was so ill he was compelled 
to receive me lying in bed, but the matter was 
set right, and later a more friendly official placed 
in charge of the district. 

No violent and coercive persecution of the' 
Christians, such as has been witnessed lately in 
China, would be possible in India; but the con- 



Barwai : An Outstation 129 

tinued petty and social persecution and the often 
legalised invasion of their rights are systematic- 
ally pursued. The former is to be seen in the 
outcasting of the convert, his rejection by family 
and friends, the loss of trade and custom and the 
general disabilities in procuring a maintenance. 
The latter is more manifest in Native states ; in 
British India the property rights of the convert 
are protected by statute, but all attempts hitherto 
to obtain such protection in Native states have 
proved unavailing. In the Mysore State, for 
instance, "a. Hindu became a Christian, and after 
baptism his wife deserted him, taking v^ith her 
his children. He sued for recovery of the chil- 
dren, but was adjudged to have lost his right of 
guardianship." Similarly in Travancore State, 
when two converts sought to maintain their 
right of maintenance out of the family property, 
it was held by a majority of the judges on the 
full bench that they had no right whatever to re- 
tain even the property given them for mainte- 
nance when they were Hindus. Petitions have 
been made by the missionaries to the rulers of 
both Travancore and Mysore to have legislation 
provided for the continuance to a convert of his 
rights, but without result, and, strange to say, 
seemingly without even the sympathy of the 



130 Village Work in India 

British Government. The fact that for fifty years 
such legislation as is asked for has been in force 
in British India and has proved beneficial, is suf- 
ficient answer to the objection that it will inter- 
fere seriously with the social fabric of Hinduism. 

Spite of these and kindred disabilities, the 
work in our outstations and among the villages 
has gone steadily on, as far as the limitations of 
our staff would permit. Though they add to 
the difficulties of work in native states and re- 
tard especially open confession, such hindrances 
are not without their value as sifting agencies. 
Again we are persuaded that the cause of Christ 
is not to be furthered by an appeal to the secular 
arm. These rights will yet be established; signs 
are not wanting that the native conscience is 
being awakened to the present injustice, and 
that legislation will be freely offered by the Na- 
tive States themselves to remove the disabilities 
under which the convert suffers. 

Our plan of work in the development of the 
outstations has been: daily preaching of the 
Gospel in the surrounding villages in the morn- 
ing, and in the mahallas and bazaars of the town 
in the evening. Regular services, including a 
Sunday-school, have been conducted every Sun- 
day, and during our monthly visits we usually 



Barwai : An Outstation 131 

hold magic-lantern meetings in the evenings. 
The aim which has dominated the whole devel- 
opment of this work has been to bring the gos- 
pel not only within reach of every individual, 
but in such an intelligent and persistent way that 
he may be able to accept it. Perhaps the most 
memorable meetings of all, in these outstations, 
have been when in the big gospel tent, or within 
the mission house, shut in from the curious 
crowd, the little group of Christians have gath- 
ered reverently round the Lord's Table and par- 
taken together of the bread and wine in remem- 
brance of Him. There were no serts, the table 
was a piece of camp furnishing, the communion 
service from the same, but God was there; and 
that blessed spirit of fellowship with these first- 
lings of the great Indian church in that event, be- 
fore which both East and West stand with the 
same wondering love and awe, has numbered 
them among the marked experiences of a mis- 
sionary career. Such services have been epoch 
making, they seemed to speak to us of a glori- 
ous future, when from a thousand churches in 
this valley of Nimar the solemn communion 
hymn would rise to the praise of Him whose 
death had won this victory. 
The work in Barwai has received a temporary 



132 Village Work in India 

check and the station been closed for a season, 
chiefly because of the smallness of our staff. 
But we look forward to the day when not only 
the foundations, which now lie waiting at the 
edge of the village for the Maharaja's sanction, 
will bear their destined buildings, but upon the 
broader and more spiritual foundations laid in 
the hearts of many of the surrounding villagers, 
will arise a noble temple to the eternal praise of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 



IX 

HOW WE DUG THE WELL 

Heat! relentless, pitiless heat! Down the 
great hillsides, that fronted the village, the 
mighty heat waves rolled, gathering intensity 
on the way, till they swept in one fierce flood 
into the valley beneath, shrivelling the leaves, 
licking up the last sap from the grass roots, 
baking the earth till its crust warped, and drying 
up tanks and ponds. There was no escape from 
it; shade was not shelter, the very atmosphere 
was on fire. It was as though the heavens had 
melted and flooded the earth; one could feel its 
waves lapping against face and neck as it flowed 
up over the narrow verandah and in at the low 
door till the little native house was full, and we 
sat gasping for a cool breath. Added to this the 
fierce sun rays pierced the low roof, till even be- 
neath the sun helmet and well-soaked cloths we 
could feel the slow creeping tension of the nerves 
that gathered to the intensity of bursting. 

We had come down the night before to this 
little town beneath the mountains, prospecting 

133 



134 Village Work in India 

for a new outstation. After the land trouble at 
Barwai, we felt that it would be unwise to rely 
wholly on the uncertainty of its occupancy, as 
the only basis of operation in the eastern part of 
the valley; and as another and just as important 
a group of villages could better be reached from 
a point farther west, we set about to look for a 
new outstation in a centre where, if possible, 
the land difficulty would not be so prominent. 
Here and there throughout the Native States of 
Central India, the Imperial authorities have re- 
tained control over small sections of territory to 
serve as places of residence for their own offi- 
cials. In one of these, Manpur, above the moun- 
tains, we had already procured land and estab- 
lished our second outstation; and it was in an- 
other, Bagode, where the central government 
had at least temporary control, we were at pres- 
ent prospecting with a view to a third centre. 

It was the middle of the hot weather, so we 
had travelled down the night before, breaking 
our journey at a wayside village, where we tried 
to snatch a few hours' sleep, stretched out on the 
tonga cushions, with our feet dangling over the 
dashboard. The Patel of the village would have 
pressed upon us the use of his cot, but sad ex- 
perience has taught us that the ordinary native 



How We Dug The Well 135 

bed had already too many occupants to give an 
European sleeping room. It was an awful 
journey; the road had once been macadamised, 
but for many years had not been mended, so 
that with broken bridges and boulder-strewn 
roadbed, it was now far worse than the un- 
broken fields; then the heat, even at night, was 
intense, and the fine dust pungent and pene- 
trating. 

We found the Kdmasddr of the district, an 
aged Brahmin, at Parlia. He had given us a cordial 
welcome, arranged for our entertainment in a 
native house, and accompanied us during the 
earlier part of the day on a tour of inspection 
about the town and neighbouring villages. 
Parlia is the centre of a large group of villages 
below the mountains. To the right rises old 
Tumbai, and away to the left Jam, scarred on one 
side by the famous but now ruined roadway, 
that was once the main artery of traffic between 
Malwa and Nimar. Right above is the famous 
giant gateway, through which the road de- 
bouches on to the plains above. To the south is 
Kasbi, a town of no httle importance in Holkar 
territory, and beyond Maheshwar and the Ner- 
budda. As our horses were used up we were 
forced to make our tour on foot, so it had been a 



136 Village Work in India 

hard morning's work; and as we were tired with 
the previous night's journey it was little wonder 
we felt the blinding, dessicating heat, and re- 
joiced when the cooler shades of evening came 
on, and we were permitted to get away from 
this furnace into the more tempered atmosphere 
of the plains above. 

As a result of our visit, Raghu and his family 
moved down, as soon as the weather moderated, 
to begin work in Parlia and the surrounding dis- 
trict. But we met with the same difficulty here 
as in Barwai; the Mohammedan, who rented us 
his house, was soon forced by the Brahmins and 
bunyas to order the Christians out; and again 
they had no choice of quarters but the rest-house, 
fortunately in this case a cleaner and quieter 
place, in which our Christian people made their 
home for several months. The next difficulty 
was with their food; the merchants refused to 
sell them grain, and they were obliged to pro- 
cure it from a distant market-place. Then the 
wells were shut on them and they were driven 
to the neighbouring river for their water. Even 
the relief of the rest-house was only temporary. 
The following December, when I was camping 
in a village some fifteen miles away, Raghu came 
over one day in a state of great excitement, to 



How We Dug The Well 137 

tell me the villagers had held a meeting and de- 
cided the Christians should not remain. I im- 
mediately went over to see the Kdmasddr, who 
of course had no part in the decision of the 
Brahmins, and who, I had reason to believe, was 
not ill disposed. He pointed out to me the dif- 
ficulties in the way of the Christians procuring 
accommodation, and how he had been glad to 
permit them to use the rest-house for so long; so 
after talking matters over, I told him that, as the 
gospel had come to the valley to stay, and we 
could not allow ourselves to be driven away by a 
clique, we would buy land and build a house for 
ourselves. It was Saturday and I had only a 
short time to spare before it would be necessary 
for me to start for Mhow, to take the Sunday 
services for the troops. To have left the pur- 
chase till Monday would have given the Brah- 
mins opportunity to frame some excuse for pre- 
venting it. Within two hours we had chosen a 
suitable site, the deeds were drawn up, and the 
land ours. 

The hot weather was well on, however, be- 
fore our little buildings were completed, and for 
weeks Mr. Drew had to stand out in that torrid 
sun bath to superintend the rude villagers at 
their work, rearing the brick and mud walls, 



138 Village Work in India 

shaping the rough doors and binding on the tiled 
roof. The house had hardly been completed 
when a new difficulty arose. One day Raghu 
came up to Mhow with that same woebegone 
expression and look of final disappointment that 
he had worn when the Brahmins decided to 
drive him out. He used to call me his md-bdp 
(mother and father) though he was more than 
old enough to be my father, but I fear he had 
little hope of my solving this new difficulty. 

"Ham kyd karen, Sahib?'' (What can we 
do ?) and tears of discouragement filled the old 
man's eyes, "the river is dried up and the 
Brahmins refuse us the use of the village wells." 
It appeared that the excuse had been given that 
the Christians' vessels would destroy the vil- 
lagers' caste. "But, Sahib Ji," said Raghu, 
" this is not the true reason. Many a time have 
I drunk water at the village wells, and never 
been refused till they learned I was a Christian. 
Why, to-day, Sahib, they wouldn't give me a 
drink the whole way in from Paiiia; I wasn't 
able even to wet my lips." 

And I thought of the terrible road beneath the 
mountains, of walking in the pungent dust over 
those rough stones; I thought of the blinding, 
smothering heat of that midsummer day, when 



How We Dug The Well 139 

we broiled in the liquid atmosphere of that 
village beneath the baked hillsides. Of all the 
agonies the human system is called on to endure, 
perhaps none is so terrible as that of thirst: the 
scorching heat, the dry, baked skin, the parched 
mouth, drawn till it fails to speak, the cracked 
lips, the glaring, haunted eyes; well may you 
who have never known the agonies of thirst, 
have pity for the dwellers on India's plains when 
the skies are brass and the breasts of mother 
earth are dry. 

I knew Raghu's contention to be correct, 
and that the closing of the wells was only one of 
the special persecutions by which the villagers 
visited their spite on those who became Chris- 
tians. We had already experienced similar 
trouble in another village, the Christians being 
refused permission to draw water, even from the 
wells they had used before conversion ; yes and 
even from those used by the Mohammedans, 
who have no caste. But in that case the British 
officials intervened of their own accord. I could 
have appealed to the officials in the case of 
Parlia also, but the feeling had run so high that I 
determined, if possible, to avoid their interfer- 
ence. We laid the matter before God, and it 
was decided to try for water on our own little 



140 Village Work in India 

piece of ground, as, if we could have a well of 
our own, the question of water would be for- 
ever settled; and the Christians undertook to get 
the work done for the limited means at our dis- 
posal, by contributing as much as possible of the 
labour themselves. 

The excavation of a well in this land of con- 
tinual sunshine and terrible thirst is not only a 
work of considerable expense, as being more of 
the nature of a cistern it must be both wide and 
deep, but also a source of great virtue, and is 
usually initiated with much ceremony. It created 
no little talk, therefore, among the villagers, 
when it became known what the Christians were 
intending to do. It would be wrong to say that 
they were at heart opposed to our undertaking, 
for the natives of India look upon the man who 
digs a well as a public benefactor, whatever his 
religious persuasion; but they were certainly 
very skeptical of the result. 

The piece of land we had purchased was a 
bare, narrow strip, not more than thirty yards 
wide, at one side of the village; and the Chris- 
tains' houses, together with a room for the ac- 
commodation of the missionary, had been built 
towards the rear end, being the highest part of 
the compound. Beyond these again were the 



How We Dug The Well 141 

houses of the Chamdrs and low-caste people. 
The natural place for the well, therefore, in the 
opinion of the villagers, both because of its 
depth and its distance from offensive neighbours, 
would have been in the low ground at the front 
of the lot. But after prayer for guidance and 
deliberation among the Christians, it was decided 
to dig the well in the higher end of the com- 
pound behind the houses. 

Without any ceremony beyond this simple 
prayer, the tools were bought and the work 
begun. No sooner, however, were the first 
few clods removed, than almost tiie whole 
village flocked over the thorn hedge into the 
compound to see and criticise. The village 
people are very voluble, and there was no lack 
of spokesmen. 

"Yahdn par hyd hotd hai?" (What is going 
on here ?), several began to ask, as they crowded 
round the workers. 

** Kudn bantd haV (We are digging a well), 
the Christians replied, without ceasing their work. 

But such a well digging had never been heard 
of in the village before. The idea of attempting 
to dig a well without the usual ceremonies, 
seemed to them not only preposterous but sacri- 
legious. There was much talk and a good deal 



142 Village Work in India 

of gesticulation among the crowd for a few min- 
utes, and then the criticisms began: 

"But ye have not consulted the pundits," ob- 
jected one old wiseacre with toothless jaws; 
"Nor called in the priests," added a hanger-on 
at the temple. "Ye have made no offerings to 
the gods," sneered a young man, a clerk in the 
kachahn, in convincing tones; " Nor feasted the 
Brahmins," objected another. And so the stream 
of criticisms, taunts and jeers rolled on, ending 
in the final assurance, which was evidently the 
judgment of the crowd, "Kuchh pant nahin 
milegd, bukiill kuchh nahin milegd." (You will 
get no water, absolutely none.) 

"But we have prayed to God who made the 
water," answered the Christians, "and He will 
give it to us." 

" Wah! " they replied, in a tone which meant 
a good deal more than it said. And as if to con- 
vince them that any God the Christians might 
believe in did not know much, one of the Brah- 
mins, who had been prominent in the opposition, 
added " Yahdn par pdni nahin hai" (There is 
no water here), " IVahdn to pdni ha jagah hai'* 
(There is the place for water), pointing to the 
lower end of the compound. 

"But we have asked God about the place, and 



How We Dug The Well 143 

we believe this is where He wants us to dig. 
Aur pcini :(^arur milegd/' (We will surely get 
water), answered the Christians with much 
earnestness. 

At which, with a loud chorus of "Wah! 
Wah!" and much shrugging of the shoulders, 
the crowd turned disgusted away. 

There was no real obstruction placed in the 
way of the work, for even the Brahmins had too 
much reverence for the digging of a well to at- 
tempt that. But day after day, as the excavation 
went on, the people would come to the side of 
the well, and, looking down at the busy toilers, 
pour out, with smirking assurance, the same 
questions and the same expressions of contempt. 
On the second or third day, when the broad hole, 
some twelve or fourteen feet in diameter, was 
beginning to get well through the upper soil, a 
shrewd looking farmer, who, with a companion 
was watching operations, remarked in no very 
complimentary terma, "Ndddn log! yah to phat- 
tar ha jagah hai, is men pdni nahin hai.'* (The 
fools ! this is a stony place, there is no water here.) 

And sure enough, as if to further try their faith, 
our people soon struck rock, much to the gratifi- 
cation of the evil prophets. But it turned out to 
be soft rock, readily excavated with pick and 



144 Village Work in India 

shovel, and, contrary to the usual nature of 
morum soil, remained soft most of the way 
down. On this being pointed out, the villagers 
had only the same assurance *' Yah to hogd, lekin 
pant nahin milegd." (That may be so, but still 
you will get no water.) And it looked as though 
the villagers were right, as day after day our men 
wrought away at the stone, and still no moisture 
appeared. " iVdh / aur kyd ? " (What did you 
expect?) they asked, *' Kristdn log hat" (They 
are Christians); and they used a word which has 
been invented by the Hindus to express their un- 
feigned contempt for the foreign religion. 

But the men toiled on in faith, praying every 
day that God would give them not only the 
water they so urgently needed, but grace to bear 
with the taunts of the villagers. For these simple 
Christians believed not only that God was with 
them, but that He had chosen the very site on 
which they were digging, and that therefore 
they were bound to succeed. Though the gibes 
of the villagers were hard to bear, they could not 
control the water. And gradually the people 
grew tired of gibes which had no effect, and our 
Christians were left to their digging in peace. 

But it was slow work; the soil, though it 
might have been worse, was still rock; the pick 



How We Dug The Well 145 

points had to be remade daily; and now that 
tliey were too deep for the coolies to travel up 
the winding pathway with the refuse on their 
heads, it had to be hoisted up toilsomely a basket- 
ful at a time, by means of the well rope. It was 
hot weather and of course there was no super- 
ficial moisture to deceive them, and they had 
been digging now for several weeks without any 
signs of water from beneath. Every day they 
were getting nearer and nearer to the great trap 
bed which underlies the whole soil of Malwa 
and Nimar; this reached without finding water, 
their hopes would be at an end. 

As the hole grew deeper and deeper, the 
prayers grew more earnest and frequent. It was 
now not merely a question of getting water, to 
them the very God of the Christians was assailed 
and His faithfulness at stake. The men never 
seemed to tire; the rest hour was shortened, 
even the time for meals was grudged from the 
well. The great heat, the unusual labour, the un- 
friendliness of the villagers all were forgotten in 
the excitement of expectancy. Even the women 
gave a hand and helped with the baskets. 
Deeper, still deeper, yet how slowly the hole 
crept downwards; they were stripped to the 
waist, and the sweat was rolling down their 



146 Village Work in India 

sides; the rock was growing harder and the 
great blocks of morum more difficult to dislodge; 
and yet as they looked round upon the uneven 
well-bottom, torn into rude crevices and ragged 
ridges, only the hard dry stone appeared. But 
suddenly Raghu, dropping the basket he was 
loading, rushed to the side of the well and began 
to examine carefully the bottom of a great slab 
of stone. 

"See," Raghu exclaimed excitedly, holding up 
his apparently moistened hand, ''Isn't this 
water? Mdrof" (Strike!) he shouted to the 
man with the pick; but without waiting for him 
to obey, seized the implement himself, and with 
a mighty blow and a still mightier upheaval, tore 
away the face of the slab. 

"Again!" shouted the three excited men, as 
the broken stone revealed sure signs of moisture 
on the soft rock beneath; and again the pick 
sank deep into the damp morum. And then as 
the old man tore it away, the water bubbled out, 
trickling in a discoloured stream into the crevices 
beneath. 

''Shdbdsh!" " Bahut achchhdf" the shout 
of joy broke in varied exclamations from their 
lips; only however to be immediately checked, 
as they saw the hole quickly widen and the 



How We Dug The Well 147 

stream of water grow clearer and increase. 
It seemed to them as though a subterranean 
reservoir must have been struck; and for a mo- 
ment or two the instinct of self-preservation 
occupied their whole attention; quickly the men 
were drawn up in the basket, the last tying the 
tools to a rope, ere with nervous haste, he 
scrambled out of the water, now fast approach- 
ing his knees; and they were barely out of the 
well before the place where they had been work- 
ing was filled with water. 

Down on their knees they dropped in a brief 
prayer of thanksgiving; and then, could you 
blame them ? a feeling of exultation and triumph 
burst up in their hearts, and, rushing out into 
the village street, past the bunya shops and on to 
the kachahri of the Kdmasddr they shouted, 
*' Pdni mil gayd ! Pdni mil gayd ! " (We've got 
water! We've got water!) The villagers would 
not believe it till, hurrying out of shops and 
houses, they rushed to the side of the well and 
saw the fast increasing water. It would have 
been difficult perhaps to analyse their thoughts; 
a feeling of revulsion seemed to fill the hearts of 
many, and more than one exclaimed "Sack hai, 
pdni to mil gayd ! " (It's true, they've got water !) 
And probably in the mind of not a few the con- 



148 Village Work in India 

viction was uppermost that the God of the 
Christians had not failed them. 

Into all the countryside went the news that the 
Christians had procured water in a well, where 
even the Brahmins prophesied they would fail, 
and that without the aid of priest or pundit or 
any service to the gods. And from all the vil- 
lages round about the people came to see the 
"Jesus Christ well," as it was commonly called. 
It was the best sermon we had ever had in the 
district. From that day we heard no more of 
the Christians being turned out; the well had 
conquered and the followers of Jesus were re- 
ceived into the community. A few weeks later 
they were holding a service in the house of the 
Kdmasddr, preaching to some of their once 
bitter opponents of the love of Jesus. 



X 

TAKING A CITY 

Among the native chiefs of Central India none 
has proved more interesting in Mission history 
than the late Maharaja of Dhar. For many years 
suffering from an infirmity which robbed him of 
the use of his limbs, he displayed a vigour of 
mind and an interest in public affairs that not 
only endeared him to his people, but won for 
him the admiration and esteem of the British 
representatives. Heir to an estate that had held 
together only by British intervention, he showed 
his gratitude by loyalty to the suzerain power 
and a wise administration. Most of our mission- 
aries have paid a visit to his capital. On the 
occasion of the proclamation of Her Majesty 
Queen Victoria as Empress of India, Mr. Builder, 
being present in Dhar, was asked, as a part of 
the function, to engage in prayer. Significant 
was this occasion when, as a Christian Queen 
was proclaimed Empress over a non-Christian 
land, Christian prayer for the first time ascended 
in that non-Christian court. 

149 



150 Village Work in India 

I had several times visited Dhar, holding evan- 
gelistic services in and about the capital; but in 
the cold season of 1894-5, for several weeks we 
laid regular siege, setting up the Gospel tent out- 
side the city wall. Crowds flocked to our meet- 
ings, and night after night the tent was filled to 
overflowing. On several occasions we used the 
lantern views, but more frequently we gave 
simple Gospel addresses, telling over and over 
again the wonderful story of the Evangel and 
man's redemption from sin, till the whole city 
rang with the Name of Jesus. 

Like the lovely bloom on the forbidding cactus 
tree, Dhar is one of Nature's gems set down in 
the midst of bleak plains and woodless hillsides. 
As one climbs the barren rock-strewn hill, that 
bars the approach from Mhow, a scene of en- 
chantment suddenly bursts on the vision. Be- 
low lies a valley of fairy lakes and glorious 
woodland, closing in upon a patch of red-tiled 
roofs and white, shining domes. To the right, 
the fort, a huge yet shapely monster in red sand- 
stone, but once breached, and that by British 
guns, dominates not only the town but the land- 
scape. Beyond the lake at our feet and away to 
the left stretches a noble grove of mango-trees, 
surrounding the Maharaja's garden and guest 



Taking a City 151 

house. Far to the right, behind the fort, lies a 
still larger lake, and on its further border, crown- 
ing a hilltop, the famous temple of Kdli Devi 
hovers like a bird of evil omen on the horizon. 
Grouped beneath the walls of the fort and about 
the open parade ground in its front, lie a few 
buildings without the city walls, the school, 
dak-bungalow and post-office, the fruits of days 
of peace; while the city itself, except for the 
palace, temple domes and a few patches of wall 
and roof-tops, is lost in the profusion of tropical 
foliage. 

It was in the mango grove near the garden we 
had made our encampment; and here every af- 
ternoon flocked the young men of the city, at- 
tracted many of them doubtless by curiosity, but 
all led round to talk of the responsibility of life 
and the New Way. The mornings we spent in 
the mahallas and neighbouring villages, and the 
evenings at the Gospel tent. One afternoon we 
were invited to hold a meeting in the Maharaja's 
large schoolhouse. The building is a plain yet 
massive structure, surrounding the four sides of 
a quadrangle, and capable of accommodating 
some 400 pupils. Our meeting, which numbered 
about 300, including nearly all the officials and 
educated young men of the city, was held in the 



152 Village Work in India 

large front class-room, overlooking the main 
roadway. It was an inspiring as well as a pic- 
turesque gathering; the white muslin coats, silk 
scarves and red turbans of the Maratha officials, 
who were grouped in the front benches, set off 
keen intellectual faces and bright questioning 
eyes, that showed our words were not falling on 
inattentive ears. The first address was in Eng- 
lish, a plain, simple presentation of the gospel 
message. This was followed by singing, to the 
accompaniment of the baby organ, and an ad- 
dress in Hindi. One of the leading officials 
present then asked permission to repeat the sub- 
stance of the addresses in Marathi, the mother- 
tongue of many present. It was only an hour's 
talk, but an hour of immense possibilities, for it 
was spent by the flower and youth of that 
heathen city in contact with the Gospel of Jesus. 
The officials came frequently to our regular 
meetings in the tent, which was erected on a 
corner of the parade ground opposite the school 
building. The interest in these never diminished 
throughout our whole visit; crowds of from two 
to five and six hundred flocked nightly to the 
tent, until we calculated that probably the whole 
city, at least the male portion, must have been 
present at one or other of our meetings. 



Taking a City 153 

The reports of these enthusiastic gatherings 
brought Mrs. Russell and several of the Mission 
ladies out to visit us, whom the State authorities 
joined us in welcoming, ordering commodious 
tents to be erected for their use. Little did any 
of us suspect the issues that lay hidden in that 
gathering of God's missionary servants beneath 
the walls of the far off heathen city. One after- 
noon the court carriages were sent to summon us 
to the palace to an interview with the Maharaja. 
All were included in the invitation, special men- 
tion being made of the baby and baby organ. 
On reaching the palace, an unpretentious though 
many roomed structure facing an empty square 
in the heart of the city, we were ushered through 
the durbar hall, rich with hangings of silk and 
tinsel and many coloured lamps, into a small 
plainly furnished audience chamber, where His 
Highness, seated on a silver throne, received us 
with Oriental effusion. Though he himself was 
plainly, almost carelessly dressed, gorgeously 
caparisoned chaprdssis surrounded the throne, 
one wielding the huge yak-tail punkah, another 
holding his scarf, while the ubiquitous private 
secretary, under whose auspices our visit had 
been arranged, ever hovered near to catch the 
Maharaja's slightest wish. Though we would 



1^4 Village Work in India 

have preferred to stand, we were all seated on 
chairs near to His Highness, that he might ques- 
tion each one as he wished. One could not but 
be struck, on nearer view, with the kind and 
genial expression that surmounted and lent dig- 
nity to that frail frame. He seemed pleased to 
hear our Christian hymns, especially one sung by 
our Native preachers in Marathi, his mother 
language; and listened attentively to the ex- 
planation of their meaning and to an account of 
our work. 

After the ladies had held a private audience 
with the Maharani, who presented them all with 
mementoes of their visit, paying special atten- 
tion to the little fellow, we returned to camp. 
We were the cynosure of many eyes as we trav- 
ersed the bazaar in the Raja's carriages, and 
doubtless the thoughts of all went wandering 
after the consequences when Christianity touched 
the throne. As for ourselves, it seemed a fitting 
event to crown the many inspiring experiences 
we had enjoyed in that heathen city; it touched 
our imagination, as well as filled us with thank- 
fulness, that from the low-caste labourers in the 
mahallas right up to the throne, the gospel mes- 
sage had not only penetrated but been graciously 
received. 



Taking a City 155 

Was it any wonder that as we gathered that 
evening round our altar under the mango-trees, 
visions of future conquest filled our minds ? 
The stillness of night was round us; except for 
a few tomtoms at some belated marriage feast, 
the whole city was at rest; and it appealed to us 
with all the helplessness and trustfulness of 
sleep. We knew that the great gates were 
closed, but to our hopeful vision they seemed to 
be rolling back on their rusty, creaking hinges, 
with the reluctant conviction that never more 
could they bar the way to the Christ of God. It 
was in this solemn hour of prayer at the jungles 
edge, with the fever of India's millions upon us, 
that Dhar burned itself into our hearts ; and we 
determined to take no rest till the dumb appeal 
of its waiting people had been heeded, and some 
permanent means provided for teaching them 
the Christ message. 

The significance of the opening of a new mis- 
sion station can hardly be overestimated. It is 
the most conspicuous sign of a Mission's ad- 
vance; it is the staking out of new claims, the 
definite and permanent assumption of obligation 
for the neighbourhood's evangelisation; it is a 
multiplication of the mission, a repetition of its 
institutions and agencies in another centre, and 



1^6 Village Work in India 

when done after due deliberation and without 
crippling the older stations, is a most definite 
source of strength. The opening of a new sta- 
tion is none the less significant to the people; 
to them it is the unfurling of the banner of 
Christ in their midst, it means that the hitherto 
casual visitors have come to stay. To preju- 
dice and superstition it is perhaps an unwelcome 
invasion, but to many it is a herald of friendliness 
and good cheer, and to all it is the conviction 
that the religion of the Christ has become a part 
of the community's life. 

The opening of a new station, however, is not 
a hasty matter; the spirit of Christian imperial- 
ism has ever to contend not only with many ob- 
stacles but a large amount of conservatism and 
caution. But in this case the whole mission was 
enthused; over 2,000 rupees were subscribed by 
its members, an appeal made to the church at 
home, and a committee appointed to see the 
work begun. When, however, a few months 
later we came to face the task of making a per- 
manent entrance into Dhar, our faith in the final 
result was confronted by no little uncertainty as 
to the difficulties in the way. There is a vast 
difference between a temporary visit to a place 
and a permanent occupation; many, whose curi- 



Taking a City 157 

osity and vanity together with a sense of hospi- 
tality, even welcome the transient visitor, would 
hesitate if not oppose his permanent residence. 
Nor was this uncertainty lessened by the refusal 
of our request for an audience with the Maharaja, 
before whom we wished personally to lay our 
plans. Could it be that his former attitude had 
changed, and sympathy been supplanted by sus- 
picion ? On our being referred to the Naib- 
Dhvdn, however, we were soon made to see the 
guiding hand of God. As we entered his daftar, 
the first object that met our eyes was a Christian 
Bible lying upon the table; it was a good omen. 
He listened sympathetically while we boldly pre- 
ferred our request. We told him of our interest 
in Dhar, of the way in which we had been re- 
ceived, and of our intention to come and reside 
permanently, bringing the gospel with us. We 
also told him, for the missionary propaganda has 
its diplomacy, that our staff would include a lady 
doctor to minister to the ills of the women. We 
asked for enough land, either by sale or gift, for 
a mission bungalow and hospital, and help to 
purchase building material and to procure ac- 
commodation in the city for dispensary and 
preaching hall. 
Experience had led us to expect difficulties. 



158 Village Work in India 

Dr. Campbell had lived for a whole hot season 
in a native house in the Rutlam bazaar, before, 
for very shame, he was permitted to purchase a 
piece of ground for a bungalow; it was only 
after a somewhat similar experience by Dr. 
Buchanan, and no httle opposition from the 
authorities, that land was purchased in Ujjain; 
in Barwai our men had been refused accommo- 
dation in the bazaar; and in the state of Bhopal 
missionaries were at that time refused even per- 
mission to labour. The native chiefs of Central 
India dislike alienating their land to foreigners 
who cannot become their subjects; and it would 
be unwise for us as missionaries to use our 
rights as British subjects to compel them to 
do so. 

Though no immediate answer could be given 
to our request, we not only scoured the bazaar 
to look for accommodation for our work and 
helpers, but also the surrounding district in 
search of a suitable site for a bungalow. Our 
expectations were modest, nor did our faith 
equal that of our native Christian helpers, who 
wished us to ask for a valuable garden site near 
the Maharaja's parade ground; instead of which 
we chose an unoccupied piece of land on a bare 
hillside, some distance from the city wall. 



Taking a City 159 

Dr. Margaret O'Hara, who was one of those 
deputed to begin the work in Dhar, decided, 
after much deliberation and prayer, that as it was 
then impossible for the male missionary to 
accompany her, to go alone and open the dis- 
pensary, taking with her native helpers to carry 
on bazaar and village work. The wisdom of 
this decision was soon manifest; the Diwdn on 
his first visit to her seemed captivated by the 
thought of all the good a lady doctor's presence 
presaged to the suffering women and children of 
the city and surrounding villages. Marvellous is 
the gift of healing in any land, but among the 
suffering and neglected ones of India, with 
nothing but the superstitious barbarisms of their 
so-called medical men, too often aggravating 
instead of mitigating disease, it comes as the 
very touch of God; and many a suffering crea- 
ture, who would pass by the mission school and 
shun the church, will crawl on hands and knees 
to the mission hospital. Doubtless the fact that 
a medical missionary bulked so largely in the 
early beginnings of our mission in Dhar, 
accounted for the splendid success of our nego- 
tiations for land. The private secretary of His 
Highness, the Maharaja, in writing to ask if he 
might call on Dr. O'Hara, thus expressed him- 



i6o Village Work in India 

self: **I need not assure you how grateful we 
all feel to you for having started your so laudable 
undertaking, the need of which was so keenly 
and badly felt by the inhabitants of this town, 
especially the women." 

Added to this were the sweet influences of a 
noble Christian woman. Alone in a heathen 
city, twenty-five miles from the nearest Euro- 
pean, she ministered not only to the bodily needs 
of the women, but to the spiritual needs of all 
classes of the community. ** I have any number 
of visitors here every day," she wrote, "people 
come here who do not come to the dispensary; 
. . . last night the wife of the Diwdn sent 
two Brahmins out to ask me to sing our hymns. 
They stayed and asked all sorts of questions." 
Again, *'I am as happy and full of peace as it is 
possible to be, had eighty-one patients this morn- 
ing." In another letter, "I am going to have all 
the Dhar Christians here to dinner to-morrow 
night . . . Hindustani dinner." Thus she 
describes the first service in Dhar: "When I left 
there (she had been visiting a patient in the 
bazaar) a crowd followed me to the dispensary 
where I took my place on the verandah, on a 
cushion from my gdri, as there were no seats 
yet. . . . There were over sixty women 



Taking a City 161 

and children with me on one side, and the road- 
way and other side were full. We sang several 
hymns, after which Bhagaji read the command- 
ments, and spoke for about twenty or thirty 
minutes. Before he had finished a boy asked for 
a favourite hymn, after which Bhagaji announced 
a meeting for 5 p. M.," and adds, **I am writing 
that you may rejoice with me over this Sabbath 
in Dhar." Thus to the faith and loving zeal of 
consecrated womanhood is due the honour of lay- 
ing the foundations of the work in Dhar. 

Meanwhile the negotiations for land were pro- 
ceeding, the committee being invited out to 
finally decide on the sites for bungalow and 
hospital. There was some reluctance about 
granting the site we had asked for on the hill, 
the state officials not liking us to be so far from 
the city, and chiefly, I believe, because the 
Maharaja did not consider the site good enough 
for us. Probably few incidents in the history of 
India's missions have been more significant than 
this aged Hindu Prince, heir to the exclusive 
traditions of his forefathers and the hoary preju- 
dices of caste and custom, and brought up in all 
the strictest tenets of Brahminical doctrine, 
taking such a marked and personal interest in the 
establishment of the teachers of an alien religion, 



i62 Village Work in India 

who had come to his capital but yesterday. He 
was the moving spirit of the whole transaction, 
traversing, spite of his paralysed frame, the 
several roads and by-paths that lead to the city 
and personally inspecting every available site; 
and it was at his suggestion that the piece finally 
agreed upon was chosen, a beautiful position 
near the fort and facing the parade ground, 
strange to say the very piece of land the native 
Christians had desired us to ask for. Besides the 
bungalow land, a most appropriate site for the 
hospital was granted just under the walls of the 
fort, and upon the main road leading into the 
city. Since then a further site has been granted 
for the orphanage, in all some twenty acres. 
The fact that the owner of the bungalow land, in 
addition to a compensatory site, received from 
the Maharaja some Rs. i,ioo, will give some idea 
as to the value of the gift. 

Dr. O'Hara was considerably disturbed a few 
days later to hear that the Maharaja was delaying 
to sign the deeds of gift until he had a promise 
from her. "What," she asked herself, "can it 
be ? Surely he does not want me to promise not 
to preach the gospel!" Thank God it was no 
such demand, but a request for a promise that 
was only too willingly granted, a request that 



Taking a City 163 

showed the difficulty with which they under- 
stood our complete indifference to caste, as well 
as the spirit of liberality and true charity that un- 
derlay the Maharaja's deference to custom; he 
wished her to promise that all comers to the 
womens' hospital, rich and poor, and of every 
caste, would be treated alike. 

Building was begun almost immediately by 
Mr. F. H. Russell who had been appointed to the 
Mission in Dhar, and in a few months our mis- 
sionaries were under their own roof. The mis- 
sion report for the year says: " The speed with 
which the opening of Dhar was thus accom- 
plished was phenomenal. The history of mis- 
sion work, at least in Central India, can show no 
such record. To have sites granted, buildings 
started, almost every branch of the work es- 
tablished, all within six weeks of the first 
arrival of a missionary in the station, is a degree 
of success in our first beginnings which we 
gratefully acknowledge as a special favour from 
God." 



XI 

PLANTING A MISSION AMONG THE BHILS 

The Bhils are not descendants of the Aryan 
invasions but children of the soil, the wild race 
of hunters and cultivators who originally oc- 
cupied the fertile plains of Malwa and Rajputana; 
and who, to make room for their more skilled 
and powerful conquerors, were driven into the 
mountain fastnesses of the Vindhyas and neigh- 
bouring hills, from which no power has been 
able to dislodge them. Under the Moghul 
rulers, they were a peaceable and hard working 
people, but with the advent of the Maratha in- 
vaders, they were outrageously abused. They 
were flogged, hanged and put to death on any 
pretext; with noses and the ears shaved off, they 
were exposed to the boiling sun; they were 
thrown by hundreds from tall cliffs and their 
women were outraged and mutilated. Abuses 
like these changed the peaceful and law-abiding, 
though naturally restless and roving Bhils, into a 
wild and hunted people. 

Goaded by such cruelty and injustice, they 

164 



A Mission Among the Bhils 165 

have until lately, and in some places up to the 
present time, maintained a plundering and law- 
less spirit, stealing cattle or taking toll of the 
wood-cutters and bullock trains which pass 
through their jungles, and appealing, especially 
in famine times, to force of arms for their ne- 
cessities. But by long-suffering kindness and 
abundant tact, the British are gradually winning 
these people back to a condition of comparative 
quiet and law observance. Bhil regiments have 
been established; and men thus trained have 
been used to quell their more turbulent neigh- 
bours. They have been brought to a large 
extent directly under British protection, and 
assured a proper recognition of their rights as 
subjects of the King Emperor. 

Short, black men, thin-limbed and wiry, with 
fierce looking faces, high cheek-bones, thick 
matted hair and scanty clothing, the Bhils are a 
quick, active race, famous as hunters, handling 
the bow and arrow, which are their only 
weapons, with remarkable skill, and fearing not 
to face the tiger in his den. But they fly the face 
of strangers. When first we went among them 
in the little valley of Kurdi, up among the moun- 
tains, they would hide in the jungle or secrete 
themselves in their huts till we had departed. It 



i66 Village Work In India 

was a sad comment on the injustice they had 
been called on to endure for many years, that in 
many cases it was only the men who fled, fear- 
ful lest we were the agents of the money-lender 
or representing some one in authority. It was 
only by our singing the Christian hymns and 
preaching the gospel of love, and their being 
persuaded that we had no connection with the 
officials, that they were finally drawn from their 
hiding-places. 

They live in a meagre way, in houses built of 
bamboo, leaves and grass, sometimes plastered 
with clay. Their implements are few and 
primitive, their clothing a loin-cloth, and their 
food corn, millet, and the fruits of the chase. 
They are very fond of liquor, which they brew 
from either the toddy palm or mowa-tree; and 
many of them are terrible drinkers, keeping up 
their bouts for days, and at times growing so 
crazy as to endanger one another's lives. The 
Bhils, however, do not live together in villages 
as do the Hindus, but in pals or groups of huts, 
some distance apart, each surrounded by its own 
little field of grain, and sometimes enclosed by a 
fence of upright poles interlaced horizontally 
with bamboos. 

While the Bhils recognise Mdhddev, the Hindu 



A Mission Among the Bhils 167 

god, in fact claim to be his descendants, they are 
very superstitious and ignorant, commonly pay- 
ing their devotions and offering sacrifices to 
some sylvan fetich, whose shrine is erected on a 
deserted hilltop or within a lonely jungle shade. 
I have frequently seen collections of these devas 
and devis among the wilds of the Vindhyas, 
chief among them probably being Mdtd, the 
goddess of smallpox, a disease which is very 
prevalent. They are also great fatalists. " The 
common answer of a Bhil," says Malcolm, 
"when charged with theft or robbery, is *I am 
not to blame, I am Mdhddev's thiei.' In other 
words my destiny as a thief has been fixed by 
God." On the other hand they are intensely 
loyal to their chiefs and leaders, refusing neither 
to die nor commit murder at their command. A 
British officer, who had been operating against a 
similar jungle tribe, the Santals, thus wrote: 
''They did not understand yielding; as long as 
their national drums beat, the whole party would 
stand and allow themselves to be shot down." 
Such words would be no less true of the Bhils. 
Moreover they are perfectly loyal to their 
women, who have great influence and are held 
in high esteem. Though they have often to 
suffer for their husbands' wrong-doings, they do 



i68 Village Work in India 

it willingly, knowing they will not be deserted. 
With all their faults they are a simple, tractable 
people, with less deceitfulness than their more 
privileged neighbours and are capable of de- 
velopment into strong, earnest men. 

Two facts specially commended the Bhils to us 
as a field for missionary effort; they have not 
been won over from their primitive superstitions 
to either of the more permanent religions of 
India, and they are not burdened with caste. 
The conviction, however, that the slow assimila- 
ting processes of Hinduism were bound, sooner 
or later, to engulf them, urged us to be instant in 
our efforts for their evangelisation. 

The Bhils of Central India are largely within 
the district under the supervision of the political 
agent of Bhopawar; and it was really this offi- 
cial who finally precipitated the long cherished 
ambition of our mission to begin work among 
this needy people. Happening to visit him in 
connection with another matter, he enquired 
concerning our work among the Bhils; expressed 
the deepest sympathy with our desire to uplift 
them; and, urging us to begin a special mission 
on their behalf at once, volunteered to help, as 
far as his position allowed, in getting it estab- 
lished. Such an opportunity was not to be 



A Mission Among the Bhils 169 

neglected and the matter was immediately laid 
before the church at home, with the result that 
permission was granted to go on without delay 
and establish work. 

The first duty was to select a site somewhere 
in the vast hill country that covers the whole 
western part of the Central India agency. It was 
for this purpose a little party of two missionaries 
and several native helpers, with a tonga and 
single bullock cart, set out towards the end of 
October, 1895, for a trip through the Bhil country. 
Leaving Mhow, our journey lay almost due west 
for sixty miles across Southwest Malwa, through 
Dhar, where we paid the young mission a brief 
visit, to Sirdarpore, a small cantonment of Bhil 
soldiers, and the seat of the Bhil political agent. 
We found our friend the inspirer of our present 
effort, had left for England; but the temporary 
occupant of his position, together with his assist- 
ants, did all they could to help us, giving every 
information as to route, etc., and sending word 
to several of the native chiefs to see that our 
journey was made as comfortable as possible. 
Civilisation and comfort however, were practic- 
ally deserted when we left Sirdarpore and the 
good roads, for the rough trip down the Vindhyas 
and along the foothills towards Rajpore. 



lyo Village Work in India 

It was our intention to travel west to the ex- 
treme limit of the Central India agency, and then 
turning north strike the new railway to Godra 
and return via Rutlam. As our trip was long we 
travelled light, a small tent, bedding, clothes and 
food. 

In spite of this the first day's journey out of 
Sirdarpore was fraught with more difficulties 
than we had anticipated; and night overtook us 
in the middle of the steep ghats, before we had 
reached any suitable camping place. Our road 
followed the dry course of a mountain torrent, 
steep and boulder strewn, and so narrow in 
places that we could touch the rock on either 
side. Buchanan was ahead with the empty 
tonga, and he seemed to have no little difficulty 
in finding two parallel passages among the 
stones, where wheels and horses could run to- 
gether. I was in command of the descent of the 
bullock cart. We had tied a drag rope to the 
wheel manned by a native helper and myself, 
while another stood by to block the cart with 
stones if the descent proved too fast for both us 
and the oxen. All was going on as satisfactorily 
as the rough roads would permit, when sud- 
denly, as the cart plunged from the top of a 
great boulder, the ropes binding axle and cart 



A Mission Among the Bhils 171 

together broke asunder, and the whole load slid 
forward on top of the oxen, felling them as 
though they had been shot, and frightening the 
poor driver till his face almost turned white in 
the moonlight. None of them however were 
any the worse; but we were forced to unload 
and carry everything to the foot of the hill, 
where we gathered, like a shipwrecked crew, 
round the wreckage of our bullock cart. Fortu- 
nately the moon was full, and with the jungle 
almost as light as day, we were soon able to 
mend the cart sufficiently to proceed on our 
way. We were either too formidable or too 
fagged and hungry looking to prove any tempta- 
tion to the wild beasts, for we travelled through 
their jungles till near midnight before we found 
a suitable camping place. We halted at last on 
the banks of a noisy, rushing mountain stream; 
but too tired to erect our tent, we made a cup of 
tea, and, throwing ourselves down beneath a 
wide-spreading mowa-tree, slept till daylight. 

For the next two days our journey led through 
a broken yet beautiful country. The hillsides 
were still clothed in green; temrU, tirnich and 
thorny her, with an occasional yellow-clad 
guniydr or patch of jungle teak, though none of 
them much in themselves, were woven into a 



172 Village Work in India 

mantle of beautiful verdure. Dotted here and 
there among the trees, we could see the little 
grass huts of the Bhils, surrounded by miniature 
fields of maize sindjowdr. Every few miles the 
road was crossed by a limpid stream fresh from 
the mountains, that splashed along merrily be- 
neath the shadow of mighty banyan, dark-hued 
mowa and graceful palm-tree. As the country 
was strange and the tracks often very difficult to 
follow, we were obliged to procure guides, and 
to renew them at each village ; for though the 
Bhil knows every foot of ground within five or 
six miles of his hut, but few of them ever ven- 
ture beyond. 

At night we would camp on the banks of 
some clear flowing stream, beneath a many 
pillared banyan; and in the morning, after a 
hurried breakfast, send off the native helpers 
with the bullock cart, arranging to meet them at 
a rendezvous in the evening, while we moved on 
more leisurely in the tonga, stopping to gather 
information on the way. On one or two occa- 
sions this led to some confusion. The third day 
out the guides with the bullock cart, either mis- 
understanding the route, or afraid to venture into 
unfriendly territory by taking the right one, led 
the native helpers in an entirely different direc- 



A Mission Among the Bhils 173 

tion, and we found ourselves in the evening at 
the place of appointment, without tent, food or 
bedding. Fortunately we had rugs and were not 
afraid to camp in the open; so we slept on the 
tonga cushions, with saddle for pillow; and the 
remains of the midday lunch kept body and soul 
together till we found the lost camp next morning 
many miles away. 

Our first objective point was a small town, the 
seat of the pretty Hindu chief, with whom we 
spent a pleasant evening telling of our mission 
and the message we had come to proclaim. He 
was still a young man, but evidently unawakened 
to any ambition either for himself or for his 
people. Good natured and hospitable, with a 
face that betokened no little potentiality, and a 
body that might contain a noble mind, he ap- 
peared to be the creature of the thousand ener- 
vating influences that surround the Indian throne. 
With exceptional opportunity for benefiting his 
people, and subjects peculiarly responsive, to 
whom paternal government is almost of the na- 
ture of an instinct, like too many of India's chiefs, 
his horizon was limited; he lacked the inspiration 
of a great ideal and the touch of the divine spirit 
to set his soul on fire of God. In this, as in all 
the towns and large villages, we found many 



174 Village Work in India 

Hindus, Brahmin priests and officials, Bunya 
shopkeepers and the village tradesmen, whose 
influence was often anything but helpful to the 
unsophisticated Bhils. These latter formed almost 
the entire population of the district, living in 
scattered groups of huts or pdls, each ruled over 
by a tarwi or headman, who in turn acknowl- 
edged the authority of the Hindu chief or central 
power. 

We preached in each large centre as we 
journeyed. Among the Hindus we had good 
audiences, but we found it difficult not only to 
get within talking distance of the Bhils, but to 
make ourselves understood when we did; for 
they speak a mixed language of Hindi, Gujurati 
and apparently some remnants of a primitive 
tongue of their own, and much of what we said 
to them was therefore unintelligible. 

In our search for a location for the Bhil Mission 
we were guided by several considerations. We 
desired our work to be central, and within reach 
of as large a number of people as possible. We 
were anxious also that it should be in a locality 
where the soil was good and water plentiful, as 
it was our purpose to develop training along the 
lines of industrial and farm work. The healthi- 
ness of the site for our missionaries and its accessi- 



A Mission Among the Bhils 175 

bility from without were further important con- 
siderations. But we were particularly desirous 
of settling in a neighbourhood where Hinduising 
tendencies among the Bhils were least apparent. 
Though they are not assimilated as yet to any of 
the more settled religions, the development of 
towns, the introduction of priest and bunya and 
especially of Hindu cultivators were fast moving 
in that direction. Many of these requirements 
we found to be fulfilled in Ali Rajpore, a state to 
the extreme west of Central India. It is almost 
in the centre of the Bhil district, and within 
reach of some two million people; a large part of 
it is plain, the soil is good, wood and water plen- 
tiful and the natives still in their primitive con- 
dition. We would almost have recommended 
this at once but for its inaccessibility from either 
the railway or our other stations, the nearest 
point on the railway being forty miles away and 
over an almost impassable road. 

In the absence of the Raja, who was pursuing 
his studies in the Raj Kumar college (for princes) 
at Indore, we were most cordially welcomed to 
this state by the Dtwdn, who united with the 
other officials in making our visit most pleasant. 
We were made the guests of the state, estab- 
lished in the Raja's guest house, and practically 



176 Village Work in India 

given the freedom of the town, the officials do- 
ing what was in their power to supply us with 
the desired information and further the object of 
our journey. From the Diwdn, an astute Brah- 
min, and an old friend of one of our missionaries. 
Dr. Campbell, we learned much concerning the 
customs, language and religion of the Bhils, as 
well as their accessibility, or rather inaccessibility, 
and the manner of reaching them. In company 
with another of the citizens of the town, him- 
self an educated Bhil, we paid a visit one even- 
ing to a pal not far from town. The presence of 
our guide allayed the fears of the timid people; 
and sitting in front of their houses beneath the 
gourd vines, the moonlight playing fitfully across 
their faces, between the flickering shadows of 
the vine leaves, they listened attentively while we 
told our story. But with all their attention they 
could take in so little of what we said; it was 
all so new, the language was strange; and it 
only served to emphasise more fully the need of 
some special effort on their behalf. 

The trip north from Ali Rajpore was for the 
first two or three days over a better road; the 
country, though none the less picturesque, was 
more level, and had broader plains. Spite of this, 
however, the camp and the bullock cart managed 



A Mission Among the Bhils 177 

again to get lost, the guides evidently purposely 
avoiding the place of rendezvous. We ourselves 
were late in arriving; it was a lonely village deep 
in the Bhil jungle; and we found no one awake, 
or at least willing to disclose himself to the 
strangers; nor did our search reveal any place in 
the village where we could find a night's lodging. 
Hunting around in the dark for a well, we found 
one just on the edge of the jungle; and, unyo- 
king and watering the horses, sat down to wait 
for the dilatory bullock cart. By ten o'clock we 
had given up hope; so making ours^^lves a cup 
of tea, without either milk or sugar, but with a 
peculiarly strange taste, and scraping the pieces 
of broken biscuit from the bottom of the tiffin 
basket, we made a meal which was the first since 
breakfast; and, wrapping ourselves up in the 
rugs, lay down beneath the trees, beside the 
camp-fire, to sleep. Buchanan found some 
stones to lie on, but I preferred the bare ground. 
Spite of the hard bed, and an unguarded camp, 
for we had been unable to procure a watchman, 
and the gruesome company of a tiger haunted 
jungle, we slept soundly till daylight. 

Hunger is a restless companion, and our wa- 
king thoughts naturally turned to the lost camp 
and our provisions. We felt that it would be 



lyS Village Work in India 

useless to try the village, for even if we did pro- 
cure flour it would be valueless without cooking 
vessels, and the cart could not be far away. I 
determined however that before starting we 
should have a cup of tea, so taking the kettle, 
which we always carried, with a little tea, in the 
tonga, I went over to fill it at the well where we 
had procured the tea water during the night. 
The well was built square with steps leading 
down to a platform by the water's edge. What 
was my surprise to see down on this platform a 
fat, greasy-looking bunya washing himself. 
"What are you doing down there?" I asked, 
somewhat sharply. ''Are, Sahib! I'm washing 
myself," he replied without ceasing the rubbing 
at his grimy-looking limbs. ''What!" I said, 
"in the well?" "Oh, this is not the drinking 
well, Sahib, this is the washing well." My 
thoughts I dare not describe; needless to say we 
set out without our cup of tea. 

Retracing our steps over the journey of the 
previous day, we watched carefully for any signs 
of the stray bullock cart. It was very hot and 
we were very hungry, but we did not see a sign 
of habitation for some two hours, till suddenly 
we came on a Bhil, busy in the jungle. He had 
no time to flee, so in desperation we tackled him 



A Mission Among the Bhils 179 

for something to eat, persuading him, after much 
Hindi and more signs, to bring us a little milk. 
This we boiled, for want of another vessel, in 
the lota (drinking cup) together with a little oat- 
meal we found in the tiffin basket, but without 
either salt or water— we were shy of wells that 
morning. It was a slim breakfast, and from his 
looks as he watched the operation, evidently a 
revelation to the poor Bhil, but it dulled the edge 
of hunger. A few hours later we found the cart 
tracks, easily distinguishable by the wide tire 
marks from those of the rude gdris used by the 
Bhils. It was night, however, before we finally 
caught up to them, at a village many miles away, 
after being separated for thirty-six hours. 

As we neared Jhabua the country got broken 
and hilly again and we found the steep rocky 
approaches to the river ford near the town, a 
severe strain on the tonga. Here again, thanks 
to the political agent, we were given a hearty 
welcome by the Diwdn, and everything provided 
for our comfort. The chief function was a visit 
to the mouldy old palace, that seemed to have 
stood the siege of sun and rain for many ages, 
where we were introduced to the Raja. He ex- 
pressed a strong desire to be photographed in his 
regal robes, seated in the throne room; but roy- 



i8o Village Work in India 

alty was beyond the capacity of my camera. 
From the Diwdn we learned that the Bhils in 
this state had been quite subdued, but not in any 
way civilised; though their potentiality for this 
was evidenced in several well educated Bhil boys 
we were shown in the Raja's college. '* Until 
his heart is reached," said the Diwdn, **and 
higher motives implanted, the Bhil will always 
remain the wild man of the woods." 

It was in this State, after we had completed 
our tour of the whole district, in a healthy, well 
wooded and well watered spot, some few miles 
from the railway, we finally chose the site which 
we determined to recommend to the Mission 
Council as being, if not as ideal a site as Ali 
Rajpore, at least much more accessible. Before 
our council could meet, however, the Brahmins 
had been at work, and the land, which was in 
the gift of the Queen Mother, was refused us; 
nor were any negotiations for a site in the same 
neighbourhood successful. A few months later 
the political official, whose sympathy and en- 
couragement had at first been instrumental in 
precipitating this movement, returned from his 
trip to England. I was struck with his reply, 
when immediately on his return I went out to 
tell him of our non-success: *'I am not sorry," 



A Mission Among the Bhils 181 

he said, "for I think you will be able to procure 
a better site, with not only the advantages of the 
one you sought, but in a more densely populated 
district, and where Hinduising influences will be 
much less felt." His long personal acquaintance 
with these people led us to place the greatest re- 
liance upon his advice, and we agreed to visit 
him a few months later, when he would be in 
camp in the Bhil district, and see some of the 
sites he would recommend. 

It was in January of '97, more than a year after 
our first tour, that we were invited to meet the 
political agent at his camp in the valley of 
Amkhut, near Ali Rajpore. On this occasion we 
travelled light, and the road was not only better 
known but in better condition, having been put 
in order for our host who was on tour. We 
found his camp at the end of a beautiful valley, 
just beyond a dense and magnificently wooded 
jungle. The camp itself was an imposing sight, 
for the representative of the Queen-Empress 
travels in state. On the bank of a bright, clear 
stream, with a beautifully clad hillside climbing 
out of the trees beyond, were erected the dwell- 
ing tent, dining, durbar and guest tents. Across 
an open square, shaded here and there by mag- 
nificent mowa-treeSy lines of elephants, camels. 



182 Village Work in India 

horses and bullocks, tethered in military order 
stood out against a background of palm-trees 
and hillside. At one end were grouped the tents 
of the native clerks and assistants, with women 
and children gossiping and playing round their 
doors, and at the other the military escort of Bhil 
soldiers in Khaki tunics and gay turbans — it was 
a veritable city in the wilderness. Beyond lay a 
scene of sylvan enchantment, a broad deep valley 
watered by a noisy, splashing stream, whose 
well wooded banks rolled steadily up to the hills 
on either side. Dotted thickly over the valley, 
some on commanding knolls, some bunched to- 
gether in the fields, and others hidden in the 
bends of the stream, were the thatch-roofed huts 
of the Bhils. A fertile soil, wood and water in 
plenty, at either end a road leading out into the 
thickest part of Bhildom, and not a sight of 
bunya or Hindu temple for many miles — surely 
this was an ideal spot for our Mission. More- 
over it was healthy, the only drawback being its 
inaccessibility, 100 miles from our nearest station. 
Our good friend the political agent gave us carte 
blanche in the choice of a site; and under the 
guidance of the state Diwdn, my brother and I 
made a tour of the neighbourhood, only in the 
end to come back to the hill before the camp. 



A Mission Among the Bhils 183 

which for water supply, healthiness and situa- 
tion, commanding as it did a view of the whole 
length of the valley, was almost ideal. 

We remained several days in the camp of the 
agent, cultivating the acquaintance of the people 
and the district. The administration of the camp 
itself proved no less interesting than its appear- 
ance was picturesque. Business was conducted 
with perfect thoroughness and tact. Moving 
about from centre to centre, ofttimes out of the 
beaten tracks, the political officer made himself 
thoroughly acquainted with his agency. His 
durbar tent was open to all comers, low as well 
as high. The agent was prepared to hear the 
slightest grievance; several times I saw a group 
of timid Bhils, with some trifling complaint, that 
doubtless loomed big on their limited horizon, 
stand on the outskirts of the camp, overawed by 
the spread of canvas, the lane of elephants, the 
military and the scarlet-robed chaprdssis, until 
the sharp eye of a fair-haired, slightly-built man, 
in a suit of flannels, detected them, and sending 
for them to state their case, listened with as 
much patience as though they had been a 
deputation from the palace. It is by such men, 
rather than her military, that England holds 
India. 



184 Village Work in India 

Our friend could show us no more suitable 
site than the valley of Amkhut; and here it was 
finally arranged our mission should be located. 
By the kindness of the state authorities, who so 
nobly seconded the sympathies of the agent, 
sixteen acres of land were granted as well as free 
timber for building purposes. There was some 
difficulty at first in handing over the land, as 
part of it was occupied; and with customary 
conservatism the owner was unwilling to ex- 
change it for another site. It happened a few 
weeks later, that he was mauled by a panther 
when out hunting, and was brought in badly 
injured to Dr. Buchanan's tent, where he was 
not only successfully treated, but made the loyal 
friend and coadjutor of the mission. Dr. Bu- 
chanan was chosen as our first missionary to the 
Bhils; and with none to help him but a few na- 
tive Christians, this earnest man set to work to 
fell trees, quarry stone, make bricks and burn 
lime, teaching these varied pursuits to the un- 
skilled Bhils, as they gradually came under his 
influence; for he was wisely determined to have 
no foreign, non-Christian element to poison the 
minds of these simple people. He was pe- 
culiarly fitted for this work, in that he combined 
with his biblical and medical knowledge a prac- 



A Mission Among the Bhils 185 

tical mind and an energetic body. They were 
very suspicious at first, all sorts of stories as to 
our purpose being afloat. Quite unused to dis- 
cipline and regular work, they were slow to learn ; 
but by kind and skillful treatment of the many sick, 
not only of men and women, but even of cows 
and goats, which are the Bhil's chief possession, 
the missionary gradually won his way to their 
hearts. The fruit soon began to be gathered, 
the former occupant of the mission land being 
among the first to be baptised. 

As an illustration of this growing influence, 
Dr. Buchanan tells the following story in his first 
year's report: "As I was returning in the early 
night on my pony from Rajpore, coming along 
the winding cart road in the jungle, within half 
a mile of the building work, I heard the voices 
of those who were wending their way home. A 
sudden turn around a bush revealed to them a 
man on horseback. With a warning cry and 
instinctive spring, like a brood of wild partridge, 
young and old fled behind some bush or hiding- 
place. It was the work of a moment. The next 
some one sang out in a happier key, ' Bdbd hat, 
Sirf Bdbd hat' (It is father, only father). And 
then out they came from their shelter, some 
twenty or thirty, with joyful expressions of 



i86 Village Work in India 

greeting, as trustful as the mother brood when 
sheltered beneath the protecting wings." 

Already several score of these timid creatures 
of the jungle have been brought into subjection 
to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus; and 
largely as the work of their hands, there has arisen 
upon the hilltop beyond the camping-ground, 
not a temple to Shiv, but a group of buildings 
dedicated to the service of the Living God. The 
valley of Amkhut shall never become the heritage 
of Mdhddev ; it has been sealed for a possession 
to the Son of God. 



XII 

IN A tiger's den 

Leaving the interesting little town of Kuksi, 
ere yet the morning sun had tempered the cool 
night atmosphere, we made our way across the 
rich alluvial plains, gleaming golden with ripen- 
ing grain, to the foothills of the Vindhyas. The 
road was little more than a stone-strewn path- 
way winding in and out through the kw-lying 
scrub of teak, her and thorny babul; climbing 
the very nose of a sloping mountain spur, it led 
through a rocky cutting, choked with fine, white 
dust, and so heavy we were forced to dismount, 
into a piece of dense jungle, ribbed and scored 
with many hills and nullahs. Making our way 
through this we came out on a narrow plain in 
front of the quaint old village of Bagh. 

What a weird place was this little village up in 
the hills; strange legends had gathered round its 
temples and the crumbling ruins of its queer old 
buildings; and rustic tradition claimed it as one 
of the halting places of the Pandavas in their 
wanderings across India. Even the bats seemed 

187 



l88 Village Work in India 

to have found in it a special retreat; as we passed 
through the banyan grove, outside the village, on 
our way to the evening meeting in the bazaar, 
the great flying foxes (kalong) hung in festoons 
from the branches, like animated fruit. There 
must have been thousands of them still hanging 
there, though out to the distant sky line, far as 
the eye could reach, we could see a broad belt of 
whirring blackness, as phalanx after phalanx, 
they kept speeding away on their quest for food 
to the fruit trees of the neighbouring valley. 

We camped beneath a wide-spreading pipal- 
tree, just below the frowning walls of some 
ancient Nayak fortress. As conquest overthrows 
conquest, and people succeed people on the 
plains of India, they leave behind them but little 
history, save in the fossil deposits of their 
mighty strongholds and deep, stone-bound 
wells. The time-worn walls above us spoke 
of a more martial race and prouder spirit than 
the tame villagers and timid Bhils of to-day. 

India is a land of mysteries; shut off by 
mountain barriers from the rest of the world, a 
little continent in herself, she has lived, except 
for periodical inroads through the gates beyond 
the Punjab, a history of her own. Races and 
religions have been born, fought out their brief 



In a Tiger's Den 189 

struggle, and passed away, with no historian to 
chronicle their story. In the midst of some deep 
jungle, dank with undergrowth, fetid with mi- 
asma, the haunt of cobra and tiger, one stumbles 
on some massive ruin that ages ago rang to the 
voice of song and instrument and the hum of 
busy life. Up through its crumbling arches and 
rent domes tower giant trees, while thick-knotted 
creepers grasp and tear at its loosening walls. 
But its lips are dumb; no written record lies 
buried in its tombs, no inscription crowns its 
portals. Such are the sphinxes of India in 
whose crumbling stones must be read her 
chequered story. 

There are some monuments throughout India 
whose stones, though no less bare of inscription, 
tell many a tale, even to the superficial observer, 
from their structure or carving. Such was the 
chief ruin in the neighbourhood of Bagh. We 
had often heard of the caves of Bagh, and village 
tradition accredited them to the Pandava kings. 
We found them in a deep jungle, a mile or so 
from the village. About twenty feet up the 
sheer rocky hillside a gaping rent opened above 
a hewn platform, showing that the silent forces 
of nature had supervened upon the work of man, 
and destroyed the magnificence of the ancient 



igo Village Work in India 

verandah. Beyond the ruins of the fallen portal, 
however, the real doorway remained intact, with 
more or less defaced windows on either side. 

Within, all was dark; but when our eyes 
became accustomed to it, we saw an im- 
mense chamber, over eighty feet square, hewn 
out of the living rock. The roof, above which 
rose for one hundred feet the great hilltop, was 
supported by twenty-four pillars, twenty of 
them being in the form of a square, six on each 
face, and the other four in the centre, and all 
forming part of the original rock. The pillars 
were beautifully carved, the outside ones being 
in general form square, with plinth and toruses at 
the base and many-sided bands above; the centre 
pillars were round shafts with spiral ridges. 
Around the two sides and the rear was a row of 
seventeen cells, whose darkness was plutonic, 
while in the centre of the back wall was an ante- 
chamber fronted by two massive pillars. In the 
corner of the cave, squatted before a little fire 
whose smoke filled the air with a pungent odour, 
was a Hindu fakir. He had the same story to 
tell as the villagers; the cave was of Hindu 
origin and he was now its guardian. 

After some talk with the old man we lit our 
lantern and set about exploring the darkness. 



In a Tiger's Den igi 

On either wall of the antechamber, much be- 
grimed by smoke, we found images, in bas- 
relief, which in themselves confuted the village 
tradition as to the origin of the caves. The 
standing figure between two attendants was evi- 
dently that of Buddha, and this excavation was one 
of the cave temples of the old Buddhist monks. 
Ferguson, in his "Cave Temples of India," ex- 
plains how the old monks, in their desire to have 
a place of worship less perishable than the 
wooden structures which still mark the shrines 
of Buddha in other parts of the world, and 
perhaps with an idea that their eternity would 
equal that of the hills themselves, hewed out of 
the living rock that vast system of caves, that 
marks the ancestral home of Buddhism in 
Western India. The alternating hard and soft 
trap formations of the Vindhyas, lying in hori- 
zontal layers, favoured this design. Beginning 
with mere cells for mendicants, they gradually 
enlarged them into halls for assembly, schools 
and chapels or shrines. We were now standing 
in the antechamber of a shrine, and pressing on 
we found the little chamber with its sacred 
ddgoba} Like the greater ddgobas we had seen 

1 A dagoba is a cone-shaped structure erected by the Bud- 
dhists over a relic. 



192 Village Work in India 

in Ceylon, it probably had once contained a relic; 
and on searching we found near the top the 
empty repository. The ddgoba itself was about 
fourteen feet high, and ten feet in diameter at the 
base, with an octagonal plinth, supporting a five 
foot dome above. 

From the old fakir we learned that there were 
altogether seven of these caves reaching for up- 
wards of half a mile along the hillside, but that 
the others were mostly broken down, and had 
become the haunts of wild beasts. He also 
warned us that there was a tiger somewhere in 
the neighbourhood, who had committed many 
depredations on the village cattle. 

Returning to daylight, we examined the ex- 
terior of the cave more carefully. The crazy 
flight of stone steps was evidently of modern 
origin, and together with the image of Ganpati 
carved on the cave front, explained to us the 
presence and claim of the sadhu. Hinduism 
had set her seal on the shrine of Buddhism and 
claimed for her own its discarded halls. These 
caves, that once rang to the solemn chant of the 
hymns of Sakyamuni, heard nothing now but 
the muttered mantras of some travelling fakir, 
or the prayers of the village women. 

The second cave was smaller than the first and 



In a Tiger's Den 193 

unfinished; the third had evidently at one time 
been a magnificent hall or vihdra, but on ac- 
count of the soft nature of the rock, towards its 
centre, was now much ruined. It was about 
100 feet square, its roof being supported by forty 
pillars, eight on each face and twelve forming an 
octagon in the centre. It also had twenty-four 
cells, a shrine and a ddgoba, like the first cave. 
But its most striking feature was its beautiful 
fresco painting, covering the whole roof and 
four feet of the upper portion of the walls, repre- 
senting intertwined vegetable patterns, and all 
seemingly as fresh as the day it was put on. 
There had been figures also on the lower walls, 
but they were now much defaced. The fourth 
cave, opening off the same verandah as number 
three, was a long plain room, with two rows of 
pillars, which, it is surmised, was probably in- 
tended for a dharmsdla or rest-house for travel- 
ling monks. 

The remaining caves Ferguson describes as 
"much ruined and scarcely worth detailed 
description." Their overhanging verandah had 
broken down, not only completely blocking up 
the platform, but hurling tons of stone from the 
hilltop above into the defile beneath. It was 
with the greatest difficulty, therefore, we made 



194 Village Work in India 

our way within the fallen mass along the hill 
front. Sometimes we were lighted by openings 
in the rock, bat oftener we were in complete 
darkness and compelled to use the lantern. 
Disturbed bats swished past our faces, while the 
timid creatures, whose haunts we were invading, 
scurried away at our approach. That the caves 
were seldom visited by man, could be seen by 
the entire lack of any trace in the pulverised 
excrement that formed a soft carpet beneath our 
feet. 

As we approached the sixth cave we found it 
in almost impenetrable darkness. It was com- 
pletely broken down, and, though of consider- 
able extent, the barrier of fallen stones prevented 
us from exploring its recesses. It had however 
the same side chambers noted in the other 
vihdraSy and from one of these I soon heard 
Drew calling: "Oh, here's another one, bring the 
light." In the back of the chamber was a small 
hole, either cut or broken into a similar chamber 
beyond. Climbing through, the lantern revealed 
to us the floor strewn with excrement and large 
bones, including the skulls of cattle. Im- 
mediately there recurred to us the fakir's warn- 
ing, and involuntarily we exclaimed, ''The 
tiger's den!" 



In a Tiger's Den 195 

The cave beyond was so broken down as to 
be hardly recognisable; not only the platform 
without but the whole front portion of the 
cave was blocked with fallen stone, leaving but 
a small opening to the outer air, some ten or 
fifteen feet above in the side of the hill. By 
means of the uncertain light, aided by our 
lantern, we examined the open part of the great 
cave, but not venturing too far. Like the 
previous ones it was quite in ruins, the centre 
and rear portion of the roof having fallen in, 
leaving great cavernous mouths of darkness 
gaping out at us from between the huge rocks. 
The ground of the clear space where we were 
standing, was strewn with bones; on one side 
lay almost intact the skeleton of an ox, with its 
shreds of meat hardly more than dry. Before 
us, at the entrance to a large hole, the rocks were 
pawed and dirtied as with the rubbing of some 
large animal, and that unpleasant odour of the 
feline carnivora filled the air. 

Our presence was so unpremeditated that at 
first only the humour of the position struck us 
and we were inclined to joke, calling on stripes 
to come out and show himself. But suddenly 
something struck us ; we saw nothing, we heard 
no cry, but that strange feeling came over us as 



196 Village Work in India 

when some unseen presence is near; then it 
dawned upon us what would happen if, from 
any one of the many yawning recesses around 
us, our invitation were accepted, especially as 
we were armed with nothing more than a walk- 
ing stick and lantern; the wonders of the cave 
immediately lost all interest, and that little patch 
of blue up above us developed a sudden and 
irresistible attraction. 

When we stood down below in the jungle 
path, the bright sun shining overhead and the 
breath coming a little more regularly, I bethought 
me of a memento of the cave and especially a 
rather fine monkey skull I had noticed; but 
strange to say no one seemed willing to venture 
back for it; I have no doubt it is to be found 
there still. 

As we wended our way back to camp many 
thoughts crowded upon me. Nothing could 
more fitly illustrate the folly of attempting to 
immortalise the teachings of religion by monu- 
ments of stone than these caves of Bagh. Hewn 
out, 1,500 years ago, with infinite labour, from the 
hillside to eternise the worship of Buddha, they 
were now the haunts of wild beasts, and asso- 
ciated with religion only in the village mind, and 
as belonging to a rival sect; while the movement 



In a Tiger's Den 197 

that gave them origin has long ago been forgot- 
ten in this, the land of its birth. The employ- 
ment of the spectacular and ceremonial has 
frequently been advocated as the truest means of 
winning India's people to Christianity; and even 
among missionaries there has been no little tend- 
ency to monumentalise our religion by architec- 
tural display. Christianity in India can never 
hope to rival the beautiful structures of Moham- 
medanism and Hinduism ; and it would be yield- 
ing to a fatal principle for her to attempt to do 
so. "God is Spirit, and they that worship Him 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth " ; may 
His church in India seek her monuments, not in 
piles of brick and stone, but in a living temple 
in the hearts of the people. 

In the history of Buddhism one cannot look 
but with admiration on the life of its founder 
and his marvellous spirit, and with amazement 
on its sudden decline, especially in the land of its 
birth. However this may be due to its atheism, 
its fatal compromises, and the strength of its 
opponents, M. Barth traces it to the decline of 
missionary zeal and the monastic selfishness so 
well authenticated by these Bagh caves. Bud- 
dhism has flourished only in the land of its 
missionary effort; the successes of Mohamme- 



igS Village Work in India 

danism have run parallel to its spirit of aggres- 
sion; and in the history of Christianity this 
principle is not without its marked illustrations. 
May its lesson be burned into the heart and con- 
science of the Church of to-day. Let the little 
Christian, whose narrow horizon is limited by 
the spiritual comfort of his own soul, give up 
his monastic selfishness, and rid himself of the 
narrow, parochial view of Christian effort; let 
him climb the mountain top, and, standing be- 
side those who have caught the Christ vision of 
the kingdom, behold its unbroken sweep over 
every kindred and tongue and people and nation. 



XIII 

THE SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS 

The pivotal factor in the question of India's 
conversion is that little group of native workers 
which gathers round each mission station. The 
missionary may be the guiding hand and hold 
the reins of power, but the real agency is the 
rank and file of those chosen from the native 
Christians for spiritual service. They are not per- 
fect, these Indian Christians, the influence of 
centuries is not to be destroyed nor their evolu- 
tion accomplished in a day; but considering the 
pit from which they have been digged, all the 
cursed heritage of idolatry, with its impure and 
degrading observances, the social restraints of 
caste and the terrible slavery of custom, the con- 
verts of India are a modern miracle. It is the 
lack of historical imagination and sympathetic 
perspective in the application of western stand- 
ards, that are too often accountable for harsh 
judgments concerning the Indian Christian. The 
very characteristics for which he is condemned 
are not infrequently signs of his changing life. 

199 



200 Village Work in India 

For instance, one often hears the Indian Christian 
charged with less of loyalty in giving and in 
church observances than under the old religious 
influences. When one considers the motive for 
religious observances in Hinduism, the agonising 
fear lest one duty unperformed should imperil 
salvation, he must rather rejoice in the evidence 
that the conquering power of faith has broken 
the shackles. The Christian is learning a new 
motive for giving and a new purpose in service; 
and that loyalty to Christ will, and does increase 
the convert's measure of giving, no one ac- 
quainted with the facts can doubt. A census 
taken recently in our mission showed that thir- 
teen per cent, of the native Christians were 
giving their tenth. 

One is not confined to spiritual comparisons in 
estimating the character of India's Christians. 
His home, its cleanliness, its freedom from the 
lewd in act and conversation, its family worship 
and Christian song, his freedom from caste prej- 
udices in the matter of neighbourliness and charity, 
his thriftiness and exemption from extravagances 
in dress and feasts, his independence, loyalty, 
sympathy for distress, and in general a bearing 
which demands universal respect, all testify to 
the development in him of a new life and char- 



The School of the Prophets 2ol 

acter.^ The Indian Social Reformer, a Hindu 
paper, after some criticisms on missionaries, 
says: '* Even in the matter of conversion have 
they not raised the Mahdrs into men from brutes, 
whom we with all our talk of universal brother- 
hood and universal sympathy and transcendental 
advaitism, allowed or forced to dive deeper into 
the mire of degradation for twenty centuries ? " 
With all their imperfections, the Christians of 
India are a magnificent tribute to the power of 
the gospel, and though few proportionately, the 
promise of a glorious day when Christ shall rule 
in the hearts of India's people. ''Foolish" they 
may be, '* weak" and "despised," but it is from 
among these a new dynamic is being chosen 
which is to be the agency in establishing the 
kingdom of God in India. 

It was only an ordinary village service, such as 
we hold six or seven times a day during the tour- 
ing season, and only a simple village audience, 
including the patel, a few farmers, some bullock- 

1 While native Christians number only six per cent, of the 
population, native Christian boys form nearly three per cent, 
of those attending school, and native Christian girls supply 
twenty-nine per cent. ; that is to say, while only twelve and 
five-tenths per cent, of the whole population of a school going 
age attend school, the Christians show an attendance of thirty- 
five per cent. 



202 Village Work in India 

drivers from the neighbouring roadway, and the 
blacksmith and village loungers, seated on a 
broken cart across the way, and yet it was 
fraught with great things for the kingdom of 
God in Nimar. We were preaching in front of 
the low roofed shop of the village bunya, and, 
seated on a corner of the verandah, beside the 
row of grain baskets, was a strolling drum 
player. He was an insignificant looking chap, 
rough, ignorant, uncouth and, as I afterwards 
learned, a heavy drinker; and yet it was this 
young man of all the group and of many such 
audiences, whom the Spirit was choosing out for 
future service. Like most Hindus he had be- 
neath that uncouth exterior his religious long- 
ings; and this teaching, though from strange lips 
and of an alien religion, had even at this first 
hearing a wonderfully attractive message. The 
two things that win the sympathy of the Hindu 
for the teaching of Jesus are the escape it offers 
from the endless wheel of self-effort and re- 
births, and the assurance it gives of complete 
salvation. This young man had a Christian rela- 
tive, and through him he learned more of the 
New Way and was brought in touch with our 
Christian evangelists at Barwai. 
About three months after his baptism, which 



The School of the Prophets 203 

followed in due course, I was paying my monthly 
visit to Barwai; when at the close of the service 
the new convert came forward to see me. 

**Padri Sahib," he said, "I want to learn to 
read." 

"Very good," I replied, ''have you ever been 
to school ? " 

"Nay Ji." 

" Do you know your letters ?" 

"Nay Sahib." 

"Well, what do you want to learn to read 
for ? " 1 enquired. 

"Oh Ji," he answered, with an earnestness 
only born of a soul on fire, "I want to be able to 
read the Christian Shdsira for myself and to my 
caste people." 

"But see, brother," 1 said, " you are a married 
man, you have the responsibilities of a home, 
you have your work and you do not even know 
your letters. It will be very difficult for you to 
learn to read." 

" Padri Sahib," he replied, "the seed doth not 
yield its oil to him who refuses to labour; I will 
bear the burden but I want to learn to read." 

I did not wish to discourage him altogether, 
and yet I had already found him to be a young 
man with a fair opinion of himself and I was 



204 Village Work in India 

unwilling to make the way easy for him; so I 
replied, "But there is no school down here, you 
would require to come to Mhow and there enter 
the alphabet class with the boys of four and five. 
You know what the village people will say about 
your going to live in Mhow, and how every one 
will laugh at seeing you in the baby class." 

"The bullocks would not travel far," he re- 
plied, "if they listened to every squeak of the 
cart wheels; I am not afraid of what men will 
say. Sahib; I want to learn to read." 

Such pleading was not to be withstood; the 
drum player came to Mhow and started school, a 
friend in the meantime helping him with his 
food. He went into the alphabet class with the 
small boys, sitting on their low bench with his 
knees almost to his chin; and there he struggled 
till the letters were conquered. He never once 
complained, but set himself determinedly to learn 
to read. His books seemed never out of his 
hand; many a time have I passed his hut late at 
night, when the rest of the men were in their 
beds, and seen his little lamp burning, while the 
raw student pored over his lessons. The Bible 
was his library, and he read it with such avidity 
and gained such a knowledge of its contents, as 
appeared to me incredible under the circum- 



The School of the Prophets 205 

stances. He soon began to take a part in the 
work, teaching a class in the Sunday-school and 
accompanying the evangelists to the bazaar. 
Later he joined the Presbytery's classes, and 
within two years of his coming to Mhow, passed 
successfully a written examination in the four 
gospels, Genesis, Exodus, part of the Shorter 
Catechism and some controversial books on Hin- 
duism, and with such satisfaction to the teachers 
as to be awarded a prize. 

In the little groups that travel from town to 
town, preaching the news of the Kingdom, in 
the village schools and chapels that dot many a 
hillside and lighten many a valley in India, there 
are hundreds whose history would relate some 
similar story. From such material are we build- 
ing up India's fighting force. With the peculiar 
character of the language of India, a people that 
think in metaphors, and whose intellectual and 
spiritual nature is coloured with the subtle, pan- 
theistic teachings that have come down to them 
from hoary ages, so that even the corresponding 
terms which are to convey to them our spiritual 
truths have to be endowed with new content, the 
mouthpiece and exponent of Christianity to the 
masses must naturally be the children of the soil. 
Wise therefore is that missionary, whatever his 



2o6 Village Work in India 

method of service, who, realising his own limita- 
tions, and that the veil of a foreign tongue and 
environment will never be fully removed, sur- 
rounds himself with a body of faithful disciples, 
whom he shall instruct and cherish, to whom he 
shall lend his inspiration, and who shall become 
in the power and fullness of the Spirit his hands, 
feet and mouthpiece, in bringing India's people 
into vital contact with Jesus Christ. 

From time inmiemorial it has been the custom 
of India's giirti (teacher) to gather round him a 
body of disciples, whom he instructs in the sacred 
books and the doctrines peculiar to his cult. 
Sometimes they accompany him in his pilgrim- 
ages from shrine to shrine, listening to the wis- 
dom that falls from his lips, and learning the 
duties of their calling as holy men; again he 
may abide in the temple at home, and send them 
out to gather alms or teach the doctrines of their 
faith. Moreover it was the custom of a greater 
teacher than ever trod the plains of India to give 
much of His time to the training of a little band 
of followers, who were to take up His message 
when He was gone, and carry it to the ends of 
the earth. May it not be that a wise Providence 
has so ordered it, that at the beginning of our 
work, it must of necessity be the same with the 




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The School of the Prophets 207 

missionary ? The demands are so great, the 
labourers so few, we have been obliged to take 
raw villagers, without the barest rudiments of 
education, or young lads from the Christian 
schools, and shape them as best we could, while 
they laboured, into preachers and teachers. And 
considering how foreign not only the doctrines 
but especially the ethics of Christianity are to the 
Hindu mind, this need of continual personal con- 
tact between master and disciple is greatly em- 
phasised. Western methods and western insti- 
tutions, with their reliance upon so large a body 
of extraneous influences, do not meet the case. 
We are without the spiritual atmosphere in the 
East that surrounds the applicant for spiritual 
service in the West, both within and without the 
home. The missionary must be the constant 
companion of, influencing by his every word and 
action the little band of helpers he has gathered 
round him. 

And so, as we journey from village to village, 
treading the dusty highroad or making our way 
through the fields of grain, seated by the well 
side or in the restful shadow of some mango 
grove, it is our custom to talk to these Christian 
companions of the things of the Kingdom, and 
to draw from flower and field, river and moun- 



2o8 Village Work in India 

tainside, as well as the scenes of the market- 
place, the lessons of the evangel. Then every 
afternoon, when we rest from our morning la- 
bours, and before the new work of the declining 
day begins, the Book is brought out and a lesson 
is taken from the lips of our Lord Himself. We 
usually pursue in these lessons some course of 
study, such as the parables, the sayings of Christ, 
or one of the gospels. Again this class in the 
district is continued, as far as possible, when we 
return at the close of the touring season to the 
station. Once a month the men are gathered in 
from the outstations and a day or two spent in 
hearing reports, especially of enquirers, holding 
them up in prayer before the Throne, dealing 
with any difficulties that may have arisen during 
the month, and in Bible study. During the mis- 
sionary's visit to the outstation a similar course is 
pursued, only all Christians, as well as any non- 
Christian friends who may wish, are present. 

There are three months in the year during the 
rainy season when village work, on account of 
the state of the roads, is practically impossible, 
except for a limited section round each station. 
It was the practice in our Mission, for years, that 
each missionary should gather all his workers 
round him for these months and give them a 



The School of the Prophets 209 

course of study, as set by the Presbytery, and in 
which they were examined from year to year by 
a Presbytery committee. In the year '94 two of 
our missionaries carried on the instruction of 
their workers together, and the following year it 
was decided by the Presbytery to establish regu- 
lar classes for Bible training, with a view to pre- 
paring men for the ministry, two members being 
appointed from year to year to conduct them. 
The lectures are all given in Hindi, and comprise 
a course of four years in Biblical Theology, Sys- 
tematic Theology, Exegesis, Introduction, Church 
History, Homiletics and Comparative Religion. 
Examinations are held at the close of the classes, 
prizes awarded and standing granted by Presby- 
tery. Already several men have completed their 
course and one been ordained to a congregation. 
Doubtless it is a far hail from this primitively 
trained evangelist of the East to the college bred 
man of the West. But no little history must in- 
tervene before the village preachers of India 
can be expected to overtake the severe English 
curriculum which the university course at pres- 
ent lays down. It will be many years before the 
supply of labourers gets within such reasonable 
distance of the demand that men can be spared 
for so long a training or we can be dependent on 



210 Village Work in India 

the limited number who succeed; the financial 
condition of the larger portion of our Christian 
community must improve before the expense of 
such a training can be borne; and there must be 
a considerable change, either in the ability of our 
village congregations to pay, or the salary a col- 
lege graduate is accustomed to receive, before 
they come within sight of one another. Mean- 
while let us not make haste. 

But whither is all this tending ? Men are being 
ordained and placed over congregations; presby- 
teries, synods and conferences are being formed; 
traditions as to creed and church government are 
being taught; and unconsciously perhaps the 
sectarianism of the West is being reproduced in 
the East. Not that there is sectarian ambition 
among the missionaries of India, for the law of 
comity is well observed, and no little cooperation 
carried out. Nor has sectarianism seized as yet 
on the genius of the Christian community, as is 
seen by the freedom with which they pass from 
the missions of one denomination to those of an- 
other. But we missionaries see the problems of 
the East too much in the categories of the West. 
Unconsciously we view her peoples in the light 
of our own religious history. We forget God's 
purpose for India has as much of continuity as 



The School of the Prophets 211 

for either Europe or America, and that we are 
but a temporary factor in the fulfillment of this 
purpose. The element we supply is the witness 
to Jesus Christ. Once Christianised, the problem 
of the Church's form and safeguards to the min- 
istry, if such be thought necessary, can well be 
left to the body of Christ in India under the 
guidance of the Holy Ghost. That the genius of 
Indian Christianity will differ from that of the 
West is only to be expected from the differences 
between the peoples themselves. While the 
Christianity of the West shines in the more active 
virtues of love, fervency and zeal, that of India 
will be marked by a predominance of the passive 
virtues of long-suffering, temperance and pa- 
tience. Not only so, but Indian Christianity will 
doubtless colour and enrich with her peculiar life 
and teaching the Christian ideal and body of 
Christian doctrine throughout the world. But 
whatever be the purpose of the spirit for the 
Church in India towards the whole body of 
Christ, care must be taken that it be not thwarted 
by any imposition from without. 

Not less important than their service as a 
dynamic in the preaching of the gospel to their 
fellow-countrymen, these Christian teachers and 
evangelists, in the very furtherance of their call- 



212 Village Work in India 

ing, are gradually filling the minds of India's peo- 
ple with a new ideal of the true **holy man." 
Too long has the vagrant sddhu with his ques- 
tionable morality and absurd appeals to super- 
stition, filled up their religious horizon. It will 
require men of another class and developed upon 
a new ideal, men with more of the flavour of 
sanctity and more of the stamp of the divine, 
to awaken India to a realisation of her religious 
needs and accomplish the spiritual redemption of 
her people. 

During one of our monthly visits to Barwai we 
found encamped there an assemblage of some 
700 sddhus or holy men. This remarkable 
group quite filled the square beside the temples, 
overflowing the roadway into the vacant field 
beyond, some even being forced across the 
dirty, evil-smelling stream to spread their mats 
on the bank beyond. A few were housed in the 
temples; quite a number had large umbrellas 
which served for tents; but most had their un- 
protected bedding spread out on the bare ground. 
They were a motley crowd, some in flowing 
saffron, others in dirty white, but most clad in 
ashes and a loin-cloth ; long matted hair, bleached 
to the colour of tow, hung in scraggy cords 
about their shoulders, or was gathered in great 



The School of the Prophets 213 

coarse knots above their heads ; white teeth and 
sleepy gdnja bleared eyes looked out with a 
strange mixture of sensuality and cunning from 
pale ash-smeared faces. Some strutted about, 
fingering their heavy dandas (staffs), or rattling 
their iron chimtd (tongs) ; others were bringing 
water in their gourd vessels preparatory to the 
evening meal; while not a few were at their 
devotions, muttering mantras to their doll-like 
devds spread out on cushion thrones, or chanting 
in strange gabbling tones from the sacred books. 
Here also could be seen the religious montebanks, 
the man with a withered arm, the ascetic whose 
couch was a bed of upturned nails, and men 
with pierced cheeks and hook-scarred backs. 
And yet these were India's ''Holy men," their 
inspiration in character and leaders in re- 
ligious thought. That they had power was in- 
dicated by the fact that, unsolicited, the people 
of the village gave, not only their richest food, 
but even gdnja to minister to their lust, at the 
rate, I was told, of eight annas a piece daily, or 
three times the wage of an average villager. 

Unconsciously I turned from this grotesque 
and hypocritical sight to my companions. They 
were men taken from lower ranks in society 
than these, men of like passions and desires; 



214 Village Work in India 

they too had their failings and their faults, they 
were still children and very much in need of 
guidance and help. But there was all the dif- 
ference between night and day in their char- 
acters, their aspirations, and the power that 
moved in their lives. It has sometimes been 
suggested that the Christian preacher should 
model his life upon that of the sddhu and adopt 
his ascetic life and garb. But this quite mistakes 
the spirit both of present day sadhuism and of 
Christianity. Whatever of admiration we may 
have to spare for asceticism, and we cannot but 
acknowledge that it has been a failure as a 
power in Christianity, it must be remembered 
that both sadhuism and the priesthood in India 
to-day have degenerated into an occupation, and 
are looked upon merely as a means of livelihood. 
It is not an ascetic cajoling with the superstitions 
of the people, but a prophet, filled with God's 
message and fired by His Spirit, that must be the 
apostle of Christianity. The native Christian 
preacher is still in his infancy, he has his limita- 
tions and probably for years to come he will 
require the help and counsel of his brother of the 
West; but he is fashioned after God's pattern, 
his lips have been touched by the coals off God's 
altar, and the day is not far distant when, as 



The School of the Prophets 215 

light dispels the darkness, he will drive out 
from the horizon of his countrymen their ancient 
ideal, the ash-clad fakir. 

A few days later we met some of this sddhu 
host at the island of Mandatta in the Nerbudda, 
where Unkdrji, the phallic emblem of Mdhdhev, 
{Shiv) holds spiritual sway over the valley of 
Nimar. Here gather crowds of pilgrims every 
year, and with them, like eagles to their prey, 
the sddhus. The island, on which the shrine is 
situated, rises high and rocky out of the midst of 
the Nerbudda, its rugged sides clothed with 
dense jungle, within whose depths tne ruins of 
many an old and once famous temple may still 
be found. The south face however is terraced 
with buildings clustering round the great tem- 
ple; while, crowning the crag above, hangs the 
fairy palace of the island's prince. The morning 
after our arrival we crossed to visit the shrine. 
The ferryman viewed us strangely as he sculled 
us across the deep rushing stream; and the 
image sellers regarded us suspiciously as we 
climbed the steps from the water side; but no 
one ventured to forbid our progress till we 
entered the temple gateway. Suddenly one of 
the sddhus, with long unkempt hair and fierce 
blood-shot eyes, rushed wildly before us, 



2i6 Village Work in India 

brandishing his heavy knotted stick as if he 
would smite us to the stones beneath. 

"Come not hither," he cried, **the courts of 
Unkdrji, Lord of the sacred waters, have never 
been defiled by the tread of the unclean." 

''Are ! brother," I said, ** we are not going to 
hurt the god." 

"Go back," he cried, "your feet defile the 
temple of the great Mdhddev." 

"What is wrong with us?" I asked. "How 
can our presence defile the god ? " But he was 
not to be argued with. To him we were for- 
eigners, without the pale of Hinduism, and their 
god had nothing for us but hatred. We might 
be good and kind, we might be bearing a gospel 
of love, but we were " outcastes," and even our 
touch was unclean. And as for the native 
Christians, who accompanied us, he would 
gladly have sacrificed them upon the temple 
altar; for had they not forsaken the gods of their 
fathers to follow the doctrine of strangers ? By 
this time a number of others, just as fierce and 
bigoted as himself, had gathered round, and the 
row was promising to be not only unpleasant 
but dangerous, when a friendly fakir came up 
and whispered that he would show us the 
temple from another way. We had no desire 



The School of the Prophets 217 

to enter its precincts if we were not wanted, so 
we gladly turned and accompanied our guide. 
He led us round to the north of the temple and 
up a narrow stairway which opened out onto a 
broad, flat roof, looking right into the windows 
of the prince's palace above, and presenting a 
lovely view of the busy river scene below. 

'* This," he said, " is the roof of the temple and 
below that," pointing to a small dome in the 
centre of whose floor was a tiny hole for offer- 
ings, *Ms the shrine of the god." 

It turned out that to this part of the temple 
"outcastes" might be admitted. So, standing 
over the place of the god, I gathered the Chris- 
tians round me and talked to them of Jesus, the 
Saviour not of one race but of the world, whose 
presence was barred to no one, and whose 
temple only the touch of sin could defile. 
**They refused you permission to stand beside 
the god," I said, "but here you stand above him 
and his fanatical attendants, where Christ's fol- 
lowers ought to stand, and where you finally 
will stand, when gods and temples and ash-clad 
fakirs will be done away and every tongue con- 
fess that He is Lord." 



XIV 

WHEN SKIES ARE BRASS 

A HUSH was over the land. It was not the 
hush of rest at noonday, when one can almost 
hear the silent, solemn set of day; nor the hush 
of sleep at midnight, when the village life has 
paused and every sound seems melted into 
solemn moonlight; but that awful hush, the 
hush of death. It seemed as though nature itself 
were dead in the valley of Nimar. The jowdr 
had struggled upward, only to sicken and wither 
before coming to maturity; the cotton leaves 
were shrivelled and dead; the streams had long 
since ceased to flow; the wells were failing and 
the thirsty cane and poppy, spite of added care, 
had given up the struggle. Every herb, every 
blade of grass was dead ; the poor farm labourers, 
all else failing, had scoured every hedgerow and 
hillside to pluck up the half burned grass and 
save their few remaining cattle, or sell it at 
enhanced price to those who could afford to pay. 
The fields were empty, for there was nothing to 

218 





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When Skies are Brass 219 

harvest; and there was no use planting seed, for 
the ground was hard and dry and refused to 
conceive. 

Even the banyan and mango-trees, those old 
patriarchs, whose leaves were made to buffet 
sunshine, and which had learned the lessons 
of many a drouth, were beginning to shrink 
and shed their leaves beneath the untempered 
glare; and the tough babuls, whose roots 
reached down through rock and clay, finding 
sustenance where all else failed, were little now 
but dust clad bunches of thorns. Nothing re- 
mained but the soil, pitiful and bare, staring up- 
wards, with its alternating yellow and dull-baked 
black, into the pitiless blue. It was a dreary, 
soul-sickening sight, this once garden of India, 
wont to smile to nature's faintest caress, that far 
as history reached had never before looked upon 
the face of famine, but now, stripped of her 
robes of green, despoiled of her jewels of lake 
and stream, naked and bare, was lying slain by 
her lord the sun. 

Out in front of the tent at Barwai, whither we 
had gone on the first outbreak of severe distress, 
there greeted us as we arose on the first morning 
a pitiful sight. The great plain beside the town 
was covered with scattered groups of famine ref- 



220 Village Work in India 

ugees all ragged, haggard and hungry. Some 
of the more fortunate few were huddled expect- 
antly round tiny fires, on which simmered an 
unsavoury mess of grains, picked up in the road- 
ways of the neighbouring bazaars, or flour gath- 
ered in tiny doles from the ptin-seeking bunyas ; 
others, fearful to face the awakening cravings of 
a new day, or subdued to lethargy by hunger 
and disease, lay stretched upon the bare ground, 
their bent and naked bodies, showing in clear 
escarpment the skeleton frames beneath, looking 
in the distance like blackened, fallen tree trunks; 
but most sat sphinx-like, their knees drawn up 
and fleshless faces pillared on bony hands, sta- 
ring with that vacant hopeless glassy vision into 
the dreaded depths of the awful fate that too 
surely awaited them. 

"Where did you come from, brothers?" I 
asked as we approached a group on the northern 
side of the plain. 

**From Rajputana," they listlessly replied, too 
far gone for almost any new event to shoot a 
ray of hope across their horizon. 

"And why did you leave your northern 
homes?" I further questioned. 

"What could we do, Padri Sahib ? Our fields 
were bare, our cattle dead, our food was gone 



When Skies are Brass 221 

and our wells were dry. There was nothing left 
for us but to flee." 

I did not require to ask for details, too well 
had the sad story been burned into our un- 
derstandings: — the slowly wilting crops, the 
anxious wait for rain; day after day passes and 
still the hard brassy sky, the same pitiless sun 
staring out of the same pitiless blue; work fails, 
the little competence disappears, the wife's 
jewels are sold, the cattle are either dead or bar- 
tered for grain, the farm implements disappear 
one by one, the few furnishings of the home 
follow, even the household gods go to purchase 
a few meals; and then when there is no one 
from whom to borrow and nothing that can be 
loaned, when the door frame has been torn out 
and the roof stripped to provide a little flour, 
when even the roots of the trees have been 
vainly called on to stop hunger's craving, home- 
less, naked and hungry, they stagger out onto 
the highway to join the stream that, caught by 
some distant rumour of plenty, is staggering for- 
ward on its forlorn hope. 

" And why did you come South ? " I asked. 

"We always heard, Sahib," they replied, "that 
down in Malwa and Nimar there was plenty." 

" And have you found help ?" 1 continued. 



222 Village Work in India 

**When we left Marwar," answered a middle 
aged man, "some had carts and bullocks, some 
had their bartans (vessels), all had something, 
but now you see, waving his hands towards the 
group, all is gone, sold for food; the people here 
are just as poor as ourselves." 

What is more terrible than famine ? It is not 
sudden and cataclysmic like a great holocaust or 
war, but gradual and glacial; with its slow, per- 
sistent, irresistible tread, it is like a horrible dis- 
ease whose agony is cumulative; it wastes and 
weakens, devours and destroys, but hesitates to 
kill. Its sufferings are not merely physical, 
much of its agony is anticipatory; the terrible 
struggle for life that does not avail, the fading 
hope, the growing uncertainty and dread. To 
some at least its hardest blows must have been 
through the affections and sympathies; the awful 
agony of seeing those one loves treading the 
same dread pathway. There were no old folks 
among the wanderers and few little ones; of all 
that we saw nothing was more terrible than the 
sight of a few infants, too weak to cry, sucking 
vainly at their mothers' dried breasts. 

"What are you going to do?" I asked, fori 
had observed the village police leaving as we ap- 
proached. 



When Skies are Brass 223 

**We can't stay here, Sahib, the Hdvilddr 
(police officer) has just come to tell us that, as 
we have been here for a day, we must move on 
to make room for others." 

*' But where will you go ?" I persisted. 

*' Where can we go, Ji? We will just go on 
as we have been going." 

Leaving these, we approached a group on the 
other side of the plain. They were from Kan- 
desh on the south, and, attracted by the fame of 
this garden of Nimar, had wandered thither, full 
of hope that here they would find relief; only to 
find, alas I on its very border, that the people of 
the " Promised Land" itself were naked and hun- 
gry. They too had received the warning of their 
fellow-sufferers from the north, and were forced 
to move on. But unlike them they knew the 
hopelessness of that dread road to the south, 
and if there was want in front they would at least 
face it with the faint hope of ignorance. And 
so, obedient to the orders of the Hdvilddr, they 
moved on. But whither? God only knew. 
They were like two rivers flowing into the 
desert; no sudden catastrophe would work their 
ruin, they would melt by units and gradually 
disappear — one died before they were able to get 
away. 



224 Village Work in India 

One must not judge too harshly the scanty 
hospitality of the native states; the hearts of 
India's people, though one of her chief religious 
duties is alms-giving, has not yet learned to beat 
in sympathy with her brother's needs. Some of 
them did give help to the stranger within their 
gates, but with an ever-increasing burden of 
suffering among their own, perhaps it was not 
to be wondered at that they did little for those 
from without. When the facts were laid before 
the British authorities, provision was made for 
all of these wanderers who were left to be trans- 
ported back to their own states, to be cared 
for among those who knew them, by their 
own princes, under British supervision. But 
this only localised the calamity. As the weeks 
crept on, the groan of humanity rose and swelled; 
the sight of naked and starving creatures was 
daily at our doors ; wheeled traffic in the district 
had greatly lessened; the hum of life in the 
market-place began to cease; the vessels went 
less often to the well ; and after many vain ap- 
peals to the gods the temples were deserted. 

Few people are less prepared to meet the dis- 
tress of a severe famine than those of India. 
There are many accessories to the lack of rain 
which add to famine's calamitous results. The 



When Skies are Brass 225 

fatalistic spirit which pervades all India seems, 
spite of many lessons, to paralyse all tendency to 
forethought and the curbing of extravagant ex- 
penditure, so that in the day of need there are no 
resources. When the severe distress came on, 
it found even the wells not deepened nor new 
ones dug, so that in many parts the suffering 
from lack of water was most acute. The com- 
parative impossibility of persuading the conserv- 
ative cultivators of India to leave the congested 
districts, which have been their traditional 
homes, and make a home for themselves in the 
less densely populated parts of the land is an- 
other contributor to the severity of famine. Nor 
are these the only elements of suffering due to 
the nation's slavery to custom. In times of fam- 
ine caste fanaticism magnifies the evil, not merely 
by its callousness to the suffering of others, but 
by adding to the complexity of the problem of 
relief. 

Though no political element in the ques- 
tion has been too uncertain or too involved to 
escape the argus eye and frankly-critical pen of 
the newspaper correspondent, but few of them 
seem to realise that back both of these and the 
providences of nature, are peculiarities in the 
character of the people, which are perhaps the 



226 Village Work in India 

greatest and most difficult factor of all. Behind 
all this again is the sorrowful conviction that the 
Hindu in the hour of his dire extremity has no 
spiritual stay, no "shadow of a rock " in the whole 
sunburnt waste of devastation. In a village near 
to Barwai, a Hindu mother watched with break- 
ing heart her little ones dying for lack of bread. 
Of the God of mercy and compassion she knew 
nothing ; the elephant-headed Ganesha had ever 
been the family resort in times of trouble. Ta- 
king the bread from the children's mouths she 
bore it daily to the temple and plead with the 
god for rain. Morning after morning as the day 
broke she looked forth expectantly for an an- 
swer to her prayer, but the skies remained brass, 
and the breasts of mother earth were dry. Fear- 
ing the god had not been sufficiently ap- 
peased, she brought of the few pice she had raised 
by the sale of her household vessels, and made 
him a more worthy offering. Still the pitiless 
blue refused to yield its rain. The little ones 
grew weaker and weaker and one of them 
passed away, but still the hard heart of the god 
was not softened nor his anger turned away. 
She must make greater sacrifice, the god de- 
manded better offerings she was told. But what 
had she to give ? Could they know what, buried 



When Skies are Brass 227 

in the corner of the mud floor of her house, she 
was keeping against the last stroke of this terri- 
ble doom ? It was only a tawdry piece of native 
jewellry, a silver earring, but it was a marriage 
present, a reminder of the happiest day of her 
life, and to her it meant wealth. 

Must this also be given up ? But she would 
do anything to save her boy. In tears the last 
fond treasure was unearthed, and bearing it to 
the temple she laid it before the god. Two days 
she waited but no help came; the morning of 
the third day she arose and her son was dead. 
She was only an ignorant Hindu woman, but she 
had a mother's heart and it was broken. A mad 
frenzy seized upon her, and mixing up the coarse 
mud and straw with which she plastered her 
floor, she carried it to the temple and smeared the 
image of the god from his elephant head to his 
ugly feet. When we reached the village the 
Brahmins were considering what punishment 
would be meet for such an awful affront to the 
sacred person of the god. 

Like the wolf, famine never hunts alone; and 
its fell companions are, if anything, worse than 
itself. Scarcity of water had driven many to 
haunt the stagnant, slimy pools in the river 
bottoms. One could see them when they were 



228 Village Work in India 

not begging in the bazaar, grouped around these 
filthy holes, their scrofulous heads and naked 
frames bent over between their skeleton limbs. 
And here it was that cholera found them, 
reaping with its swift, sharp sickle not by ones 
or by tens, but by hundreds and thousands. Two 
hundred a day was the record of one town 
in Central India, and 3,000 in four days 
that of a town on its borders. "You could 
stand any evening," said one missionary, **by 
the side of one of these pools, and count from 
100 to 200 in all stages of disease; and the only 
attention most of them received was to have 
their bodies carted away when they died." The 
incalculable agonies that these pools witnessed 
with their last few drops will never be told, for 
it beggars description. One can tell the story of 
some starving tenement dwellers for he has the 
lurid lights of contrast; but when it is not one 
but millions, when the whole landscape is one 
dull grey of want and suffering, the pen fails and 
the camera will not focus. 

In cold statistics **This famine," to quote the 
viceroy concerning the last visitation, "within 
the range of its incidence, has been the severest 
that India has ever known. ... It has 
affected an area of over 400,000 square miles, 



When Skies are Brass 229 

and a population of about 60,000,000, of whom 
25,000,000 belong to British India and the re- 
mainder to native states. Within this area the 
famine conditions have, during the greater part 
of the year, been intense. Outside it they have 
extended, with a gradually dwindling radius, 
over wide districts. ... In a greater or less 
degree nearly one-fourth of the entire population 
of the Indian continent have come within the 
range of famine operations. ... At normal 
prices the loss was at least seventy-five crores, or 
50,000,000 sterling. ... It was not merely a 
crop failure, but a fodder famine on an enormous 
scale, followed in many parts by a positive 
devastation of cattle . . . both plough cat- 
tle, buffaloes and milk kine. In other words it 
affected, and may almost be said to have an- 
nihilated, the working capital of the agricultural 
classes." 

But if this famine has been the most ex- 
ceptional in history, the system for its relief has 
been no less so. Considering the vastness of its 
scale and the nature of those relieved, there has 
probably never been, in the whole history of 
calamities, a more excellent or better worked 
system of alleviation. The immediate cause of 
famine is of course drought or the failure of the 



230 Village Work in India 

annual rainfall, the effect of which in a land 
where ninety per cent, of the population are 
agriculturists, is not merely to cut off the supply 
and raise the price of food, but to deprive a large 
proportion of the community of their source of 
labour. The Indian government has sought to 
meet this recurring difficulty of a failure of the 
monsoons by developing, wherever possible, 
immense systems of irrigation. More than 29,- 
000,000 acres, or 21.2 per cent, of the entire 
cultivated area of India, were returned in 1891 as 
irrigated; and, as the viceroy said in his address 
on the late famine, ** All the possible schemes of 
this character are well known and are gradually 
being undertaken." Tank storage is of course 
everywhere possible, and the digging of these is 
one of the chief forms of relief work. But their 
efficacy is limited; one tank may destroy an- 
other, the soil may become water-logged, or 
with an evaporation that is often twelve times 
the rate of consumption, the supply will rapidly 
disappear. 

The question of food supply has now been 
virtually solved by the inauguration of a system 
of railway intercommunication which covers the 
whole of India, and whose efficacy was seen 
in the fact that, during the late famine, the 



When Skies are Brass 231 

price of food was practically the same in both 
affected and unaffected parts. Government is 
still further facing the probable permanency of 
the difficulty by raising an insurance fund against 
future distress. 

These more permanent works still leave un- 
solved the immediate difficulty; food, however 
plentiful, is not to be had without purchasing 
power, and this again is dependent upon some 
temporary supply of labour. Indiscriminate char- 
ity is both unwise and impracticable. "On the 
one hand," says the viceroy, **we have set our 
faces against indiscriminate and pauperising 
charity, and have endeavoured to insist on relief 
being administrated with the care and method 
which we owe to the taxpayer and to the ex- 
chequer. On the other hand we have been pre- 
pared to accept any expenditure of which it could 
be shown that it was required to save life or to 
mitigate genuine distress." This relief has been 
afforded by a system of relief works, consisting 
necessarily of unskilled labour, railway earth- 
works, roads and tanks for the storage of water; 
and for which a daily subsistence wage has been 
given, the willingness to accept the wage being 
the test of genuine distress. That these meas- 
ures have been instrumental in mitigating the 



232 Village Work in India 

terrible effects of famine is seen by a comparison 
of the death rates during the last famine in Ben- 
gal, under native rule, and the late unprecedented 
famine of '99-00. While the excess in mortality 
in all the affected parts of British India during 
the latter, including deaths from cholera and 
smallpox, were only 750,000, those in Bengal 
alone during the earlier famine were ten millions, 
or more than one-third of the whole population. 
The great mortality during the late famine in 
native states, as revealed by the census, where 
the relief measures were not under British control, 
only emphasises the efficacy of the latter's system. 
To such a system the missionary's relation was 
naturally that of an auxiliary. Government offi- 
cials were glad of the aid of the missionaries in 
carrying out their plan of relief; their knowledge 
of the people and wide influence were to them 
invaluable. Many were called on to superintend 
hospitals and relief camps; and in not a few cases 
the missionaries were the only Europeans in a 
position to reach certain classes. The Bhils and 
other aborigines, who are looked upon by the 
ordinary native official as worthless creatures of 
the jungle, found their best friends among the 
missionaries, several of whom laid down their 
lives on their behalf. Missionaries carried on not 



When Skies are Brass 233 

a little relief work on their own account; they 
were also the instrumentality in distributing much 
of the relief in foodstuffs, etc., sent from America 
and Great Britain. Of no little value was the 
medical relief given at nearly every Mission sta- 
tion; for the scourge of famine is not confined 
to mere inanition, it is more destructive in the 
many diseases that follow in its train. But per- 
haps the greatest service the missionaries were 
able to perform was in the rescue and care of the 
children. The primary importance of rescuing 
the coming generation of India's labourers need 
not be emphasised; and it was a work requiring 
such care in detail, for many of them had to be 
nursed like infants, as could better be given under 
the personal supervision of the missionary than 
in a temporary government workhouse. Many 
of these returned to their villages as soon as the 
stress was over, but many were left with the 
missionary to teach and train to some means of 
livelihood, and in many cases to win for the 
Kingdom of Christ. It was helpful to know 
that in this work we had the sympathy not only 
of the Supreme Government but also of many of 
the native states, one of them, the State of Dhar, 
giving a grant of both land and money for the 
purpose. 



234 Village Work in India 

The value of the missionary agency, as a means 
of relief to the famine sufferers, was singled out 
for special commendation by Lord Curzon in his 
speech before the Legislative Council already 
quoted. *' Particularly," he says, **must I men- 
tion the noble efforts of the various Christian 
denominations. If ever there was an occasion in 
which their local knowledge and influence were 
likely to be of value, and in which it was open 
to them to vindicate the highest standards of 
their beneficent calling, it was here; and stren- 
uously and faithfully have they performed the 
task." To this may be added the evidence of a 
disinterested witness, the correspondent of The 
Bombay Times, who, in reporting the state of 
affairs in Gujurat, says: **The case of the vil- 
lagers would have been hard indeed but for the 
intervention of the Padri Sahib (missionary) and 
the relief fund. One of the brightest features 
which breaks the monotony of a tour through 
the famine districts is the constant evidence of 
the grand self-abnegation and heroic single- 
mindedness with which the missionaries as a 
body have risen to the great opportunity afforded 
by this visitation. Their labours have not been in 
vain. The comparison between the benevolent 
activity of the foreign propagandist and the cold, 



When Skies are Brass 235 

callous neglect of their wealthy fellow-country- 
men, has not been lost upon the Indian mind, 
and from this time missionary enterprise will 
command an appreciative and sympathetic ad- 
miration from the native, instead of jealous and 
suspicious scepticism. It was good to see eyes 
glow and faces kindle with gratitude as the hardy 
ryots recounted the tale of the Padri Sahib's 
munificence." 

Over against this however must be set the fact 
that with all that was done the loss, especially in 
the native states, was terrible. It is estimated 
that from thirty to fifty per cent, of the Bhils have 
perished and the destitution among those re- 
maining is appalling. Most distressing is the 
fact set forth in the following words of a mis- 
sionary among these people: **Can you imagine 
the loss of so many starving and our hands 
crowded ? We could not do more than touch a 
little adjoining circle, while the great sea of need 
lay all around. More than that, while we were 
so busy with the temporal needs and none to 
help, we could not do for them spiritually what 
was demanded by the situation." And again, 
"The death of these numbers, to say nothing of 
the thousands and thousands we never saw, 
whose bones now whiten the valley and hill. 



236 Village Work in India 

might have been saved if we had only had more 
men to help." Even the words of commenda- 
tion above quoted are not to be viewed from the 
standpoint of satisfaction but of opportunity. 
The famine problem is not closed with the ad- 
vent of the rains and new crops, nor its fruits 
gathered with the rescue and care of the many 
orphans thrust upon our hands. These awa- 
kened sympathies and new-born opportunities are 
a call to the Church to evangelise these districts 
and bring to their starving souls the Bread of 
Life. 

Not only so; as with government so with the 
missionary propaganda, famine is assuming the 
nature of a factor in the problem, whose con- 
stant recurrence demands a policy. Not an inde- 
pendent policy of temporal relief, which can best 
be determined by the Imperial authorities, but a 
policy, the main feature of which shall be a suf- 
ficient force not only to be able to cooperate 
with government in her plan of relief and dis- 
tribute the funds and food put into their hands 
from abroad, but also to be able to handle the 
children that famine thrusts upon our care and 
enter on the opportunities it affords for preach- 
ing the gospel. For this we must all recognise, 
that whatever may be done for India's poor po- 



When Skies are Brass 237 

litically, they will never rise from their degrada- 
tion without a change of character and a new 
dynamic, and these are only to be found in the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The fight with famine is a hard fight, the 
strain on strength and heart is severe, but it is 
not in vain. Concerning one of our missionaries 
another wrote: *'But when I tell you that when 
he falls asleep, he keeps dreaming of starving 
Bhils and is awakened by the crying of some one 
suffering from cholera; then finds that he him- 
self has dysentery; gets up and takes medicine; 
lies down again to dream of distributiiig grain, 
you will see that he cannot go on long at that 
rate." Cheerfully, manfully, some of them fought 
it out at the distant outposts, alone with their 
great hungry families in the midst of pain, foul- 
ness and selfishness, till they themselves were 
called on to yield their lives to the last fell stroke 
of cholera. What a touchingly noble picture 
that piercing noonday sun of the 19th of May 
looked down upon, out in the lonely Bhil jungle. 
Far from home, surrounded by none but his 
native attendants, the still young missionary lay 
dying in the shadow of a tree by the roadside, 
stricken down in his round of relief by that 
awful scourge. Such lives have not been given 



238 Village Work in India 

in vain and such appeals to the heart of India 
have not remained unanswered. The great heart 
of Christ, as it bled afresh over India's famine 
stricken millions, has been awakening them to a 
realisation that the incarnate love of God dwells 
in Him, and that He, the true Avatar, is the so- 
lution of their problem, the Light for their dark- 
ness, and the rest for their weary and heavy 
laden hearts. 



XV 

THE PROBLEM 

It seems fitting that I should close these ran- 
dom sketches by a plain statement of the prob- 
lem as it appears from the view-point of a 
village preacher. In the previous chapters I have 
made no attempt to be either historical, statistical 
or even argumentative, it has been my endeavour 
to make impressions. If I have succeeded at all, 
I have given some idea of the immensity of the 
work, of the great density of the people, and 
especially, as compared with western lands, of 
the village population. I have attempted to give, 
in however meagre a way, some account of the 
spiritual thralldom of the village people and of 
the utter hopelessness of any salvation coming to 
them from within Hinduism. I have stated it as 
my conviction, based not only on faith but per- 
sonal experience for several years that the gospel 
is the "Power of God unto salvation" to these 
village people, whether educated or uneducated, 
that all are open to its influence, and that from 
all classes men are being saved by its message. 

239 



240 Village Work in India 

I have further stated it as my conviction that 
"the fooHshness of preaching" is still the 
method which, by divine grace, is best fitted 
for reaching men's hearts with the gospel mes- 
sage. It has been objected by even such a re- 
markable convert as Fr. Goreh that the village 
people are ** ignorant and do not understand." 
Surely if the village people do not understand it 
is not the fault of the gospel. Christianity is not 
Vedantism, it is neither abtruse nor recondite, 
and its simplicity has ever been its greatest 
claim. If the people do not understand it is not 
the fault of the message but the messenger, and 
his failure to enter into touch with their view- 
point and modes of expression, and can be over- 
come by a closer and more sympathetic study of 
the people. For this very reason as well as 
others, I have sought to emphasise the necessity 
for a fuller development of a native agency, 
through whom the missionary shall multiply 
himself and upon whom shall gradually fall the 
whole burden of the work. 

My silence in regard to other methods of 
mission work is not of the nature of criticism. I 
recognise that in the great problem of the world's 
redemption God's ways are many and His gifts 
many. The only qualification I would make is 



The Problem 241 

that of Dr. Dennis, that while the evangelistic 
aim must not be regarded as monopolised by the 
evangelistic method, it should itself pervade all 
other methods. There are always two dangers 
in mission work, one, that of making the means, 
whether it be education, medicine, or even 
preaching, an end in itself; and the other that of 
over institutionalising. There is a glamour 
about an institution, whether school, orphanage 
or hospital, in its regular duties, its codified re- 
sults, and its appeal to the eye, a glamour that is 
fostered by the public craving for something 
definite, something they can see, and whose 
results are tangible. We must learn to judge all 
institutions not in themselves, nor in comparison 
with those of a similar kind, but in their relation 
to the one end and aim of all mission work; and 
to develop them accordingly. 

With a population of nearly 300,000,000, in- 
creasing at the rate of one per cent, or 3,000,000 
per annum, ^ and a Christian population of only 
2,000,000 or fifty-five per cent, of whom only 
560,000, or sixteen per cent, are Protestants, the 

' The much diminished increase of the past decade, being 
only 2.42 per cent, for the whole ten years, need not necessarily 
change this estimate drawn from the previous twenty years, as 
the circumstances were peculiar, including during the ten years 
two severe famines and plague. 



242 Village Work in India 

paramount duty in the accomplishment of this 
aim of missions in India is the bringing of Jesus 
Christ into such direct contact with the masses 
that they may be able to intelligently receive 
Him. As ninety per cent, of these, or 270,000,- 
000 live in the villages, the large proportion of 
missionary effort should flow in this direction. 
It has therefore been my endeavour to give some 
idea of the claims and opportunities for the 
evangelisation of the villages. As the place of a 
native agency in the fulfillment of this purpose is 
strategical, some plan for their training and 
development is of greatest importance, as are 
also the building up of the native church and the 
industrial, intellectual and spiritual training of the 
Christian community: but we must allow none of 
these to sidetrack us from the main movement 
among the masses in the villages. 

As to what is being done for the villages of 
India it is difficult to procure exact statistics; 
probably not more than fifty per cent, of the 
whole foreign staff, or about 1,000 missionaries 
are engaged in this work, giving one to about 
270,000 of the people. What this means to the 
accomplishment of the work may best be seen 
by a concrete example. It has been my custom 
to keep a record of all the meetings held in con- 



The Problem 243 

nection with our evangelistic work in my own 
field. The reports show that in one year the 
gospel was preached by my five helpers and my- 
self to about 50,000 people. Of these about 
8,000 were women, 14,000 children and the rest 
men. This number was reached in about 1,300 
different meetings, exclusive of all congregational 
and Sunday-school services. Allowing Sundays 
for these services, and the classes during the 
rains, this would give, with two or three 
preachers present at each meeting, an average 
of two meetings daily to each man, together 
with all the journeying involved. The largest 
attendance of the year under review was 300, 
many meetings had less than twenty, some less 
than ten, the average being about forty. More- 
over of these 50,000 people, many were counted 
several times, as some places were reached almost 
weekly. I have estimated that in the western 
half of Central India, our mission, with a staff of 
twenty-five missionaries and all their agencies, 
does not reach, even with a single gospel mes- 
sage a year, more than 300,000 out of a popu- 
lation of 5,000,000, or at most about six per cent., 
and out of 17,000 villages we occupy permanently 
only eighteen. 
One would like to believe that the state of 



2z|4 Village Work in India 

affairs in Central India is exceptional, and that in 
other parts the population is more fully reached. 
The perusal of such a tract as that published in 
1896 by Mr. R. P. Wilder, entitled "An Appeal 
for India," shatters any such hope. Take such 
facts as the following: In the Nizam's domin- 
ions, with a population of 11,500,000, there are 
only about thirty missionaries, in the Telegu 
part one missionary to about 500,000 people. In 
the Poona district, out of 1,191 towns and vil- 
lages, 1,169 have no resident Christian, and 
very rarely are visited by a messenger of the 
gospel. 

Kathiawar has three missionaries to 3,000,000 
people. Thousands have never heard of Christ. 
Kutch, said to have the population of Uganda, 
has never had a missionary. 

In central provinces, Chanda, with an area of 
10,749 square miles, with 2,700 villages, and a 
population of over 690,000, has no missionary. 

Rajpore has 5,000,000 population, and only 
twelve missionaries. 

Bhopal, with 2,000,000 people, has just been 
opened to the gospel. 

Behar, with its vast population of 24,000,000, 
has only six European missionaries. Quite half 
of the province is as much heathen as any other 



The Problem 245 

part of the world, having never yet even heard 
the sound of the gospel. 

Dacca has a staff of two missionaries and four 
evangelists to 2,409,000 people. Tipperah has 
four ladies among a population of 1,500,000, and 
Pubnah, with 3,000,000, has five missionaries. 

Ballia, in the Northwest Province, with a 
population of 924,763, is entirely unoccupied. 

Rajputana has a population of over 12,000,000, 
with only twenty-four European missionaries at 
work. 

And these are only a few of the telling facts 
related, facts upon which the lapse of five years 
has made no material impression. 

Another important element in the problem of 
India's evangelisation is the proportion of foreign 
to native agency necessary for the accomplish- 
ment of the work. This native agency in 
evangelistic work must be carefully distin- 
guished from the native pastorate. All mission- 
aries are agreed in the advisability of the native 
church supporting its own pastors, but the pas- 
tors of a poor and scattered flock numbering 
only sixteen per cent, of the population, even if 
they had much time to spare from their pastoral 
duties, can form but a small element in the solu- 
tion of the problem. A native evangelistic 



246 Village Work in India 

agency, associated with each missionary and as 
a part of the mission's staff, is the only aid to be 
rehed upon besides the foreign staff. Except in 
the older missions the supply for such an agency 
is still very limited, and can only be increased as 
the Holy Spirit chooses out men from among the 
new converts. It will be many years however 
before the proportion of native workers will 
grow so large that we will be able to lessen our 
demands for foreign aid; and still longer before 
the native contingent will be able to dispense 
with the inspiration, instruction and supervision 
supplied by the foreign missionary. 

Mr. John R. Mott took a consensus of opinion 
from all the great mission fields last year 
on the question of the absolute demand for 
missionaries in addition to native assistants. He 
says in his late work "The Evangelisation of the 
World," ''Leading authorities in all the great 
mission fields have been asked to estimate how 
many missionaries, in addition to native assist- 
ants, would be required so to lead the mission- 
ary enterprise as to accomplish the evangelisation 
of these countries within a generation. The 
highest number suggested by any one is one 
missionary to every 10,000 of the heathen popu- 
lation. Few gave a lower estimate than one to 



The Problem 247 

100,000. The average number given is one to 
50,000. Thie number most frequently specified 
is one to 20,000." Mr. Mott in his computation 
of the needs follows the last figure, which would 
give for India a staff of 15,000 foreign mission- 
aries, or an increase of 750 per cent. 

The work, however great its requirements, is 
not without its encouragements. Even in the 
matter of numbers the Protestant community in 
India increased during the period between the 
censuses of '71 and '91 at the rate of 105 per cent, 
while the general population had grown only by 
twenty per cent. But this in no way represents 
the only effect of missions. A great change has 
gone on in the hearts of the people towards 
Christianity. Years of contact with its teachers 
and adherents, kindness received especially dur- 
ing famine times from the missionaries, the 
gradual effect of the constant preaching of higher 
ideals, and especially the presence in their midst 
of men, whose whole character and life have 
been transformed and uplifted by this new doc- 
trine, have had their effect in softening the hearts 
of the people to the gospel message. Again, as 
Sir Charles Elliott, the former Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor of Bengal, said in a recent paper before the 
Church Congress in England, **The caste and 



248 Village Work in India 

family influence — which are as powerful among 
the low as among the high castes — are immense 
impediments to conversion : it is to this we owe 
a large number of the * Borderers ' who, while 
almost convinced at heart, shrink from a final 
break with the relationships they hold so dear." 
Such a class is not only a testimony to the un- 
chronicled results of missions in India, but also 
to the sincerity of those who, in the face of such 
opposition, have had the courage to confess 
Christ. 

As to the character of the converts the same 
paper said: **The great mass of our converts 
belong to the aboriginal tribes whose animistic 
religions rest entirely on the basis of fear, so that 
the doctrine of a God of love has for them an 
infinite attraction, and they find it comparatively 
easy to leave their ancestral faiths. . . . Their 
characters are simple and their mental grasp is 
small ; and it cannot be expected of them that they 
should rise to any height of devotion. . . . 
But conversion has placed their feet on the first 
step of religious growth. They are removed 
from debasing superstitions and from an atmos- 
phere in which immorahty is licensed to one in 
which every impulse received from their leaders 
is in the direction of moral and intellectual im- 



The Problem 249 

provement. For those who belong to the Aryan 
races we can make a stronger claim, for they 
have in almost every case come through strong 
tribulation into the Kingdom of God." 

Straws show which way the current sets. 
During my convalescence from a late severe ill- 
ness, the Hindu barber remarked to me: *'It 
was God (using the term for the one God) who 
saved you, Sahib; all we people in the bazaar 
have been praying for you." Travelling some 
months ago in the same railway cai'riage with a 
native official in Indore State, he remarked dur- 
ing conversation: "I myself am too old to be- 
come a Christian, but I believe that in a few 
years our children will all accept your faith." 
Another evidence of this unchronicled power is 
in the great numbers who in the villages, where 
the gospel has been preached, have given up 
idolatry. Even more significant perhaps is the 
great interest shown, especially by the young 
men of India, in the person of Christ; though 
they will have nothing to do with our church 
organisations and shrink from the idea of bap- 
tism, they devour most eagerly any literature on 
the person and work of Jesus. No book is in as 
many hands in India to-day as the gospel, and no 
name looms as largely on the horizon of the 



250 Village Work in India 

thoughts of her people as the name of Jesus 
Christ. 

With a people so heterogeneous, not only in 
origin but disposition, with such a kaleidoscope 
of religious cults and systems, with social bar- 
riers like caste and so many petrified customs, 
and with a false patriotism that clings to the old 
because it is national and refuses the new be- 
cause it is alien, the problem in India is perhaps 
the most difficult in Mission history. But if dif- 
ficult of conquest, India is correspondingly stra- 
tegic in its position. The birthplace of two of 
the greatest religious movements of history, the 
home of more than one-fourth of the Mohamme- 
dans of the world, and containing one-fifth of 
the population of the world, its conquest for 
Christianity is fraught with great meaning to the 
world problem. Moreover never before were its 
doors so open to Christian missions. In almost 
every portion of the Empire may organised mis- 
sion work be carried on, the State of Bhopal 
being among the last to open their doors. From 
every part of the field come news of strategic 
positions waiting for labourers. A few years ago 
we were invited by the prime minister of one of 
the unoccupied states of Central India to begin 
work within his jurisdiction; and several times 



The Problem 251 

during the past few years, exceptional oppor- 
tunities for entrance into some of the larger 
towns of our field have been afforded us, but we 
have been unable to accept them because of the 
limitations of our staff. 

On the other hand the forces opposed to the 
gospel are organised as never before. Orthodox 
and Somaj movements alike are issuing tracts; 
the faithful are being called on to "Awake! and 
oppose the progress of Christianity"; their 
preachers follow us into the villages proclaiming 
the mistakes of Christianity; their educational 
policy is alive and active; and almost the whole 
native press is enlisted in their aid. 

Let the Church face the problem boldly, fear- 
lessly and with calm assurance; let there be on 
the part of those at home no feverish demand 
for startling results, no impatient interference in 
the plan of work, but a loyal faith in their repre- 
sentatives at the front, and a determination to 
give them prayerful and adequate support. Let 
those on the field not be led away by the 
glamour of public approbation, but remember 
that their duty is to preach the gospel and bring 
India into vital contact with the Living Christ. 
God is behind us, victory before, in the name of 
our King let us go forward. 



MI AV O - 1 QHO 



ICOPV OEl. TO CAT. 
WAY 1 'sy02 

MAY 9 1902 



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3 

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